


Adventure Time 1000+

by TheDinosaurNerd



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Eventual Relationships, F/F, F/M, Fun, Future, Ooo 1000+, Post-Canon, just be patient fellas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-08-01 08:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 24,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16281314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDinosaurNerd/pseuds/TheDinosaurNerd
Summary: 1000 years after Adventure Time, join Shermy the Cat and Beth the Pup Princess on a new series of adventure and excitement in the land of Ooo!The fun will never truly end, as long as someone is there to have it.





	1. Pilot

Shermy the Cat lounged comfortably next to his new best friend, Beth. They had met about a week ago, and they had become fast friends. He didn’t know much about the pup- just that she had left the Pup Kingdom a while ago for some reason he hadn’t yet learned, and that she could do some really weird stuff with her belly button. Shermy didn’t know a lot of things- where he came from, or why he was here, or why people thought the library was fun. Not that he needed to know. The things that were really important he knew like the back of his hand- he lived in a land called Ooo, and he knew that there were adventures to go on, monsters to fight, and mysterious things to find. There was fun to be had. That was what was really important.

Shermy and Beth were sitting in the Grasslands together. It was a calm quiet day, the sky overcast and gray as usual. Beth had mentioned that she had once read (ew) about a Catalyst Comet that crashed not too long ago- maybe in the last century- and kicked up a bunch of dust, and that was why the sky was always so dim. Not that Shermy really cared about that book stuff. He didn’t really think that it was true what they said about ‘blue skies’ and ‘sunlight’. All that beeswax was for the boring people, and was Shermy boring? No, siree. Shermy was exciting!

Beth was kinda boring, but she was pretty cool too. She was into all that dusty book junk, but she also liked adventuring as much as Shermy did. Her belly button power was pretty useful, and it was nice fighting monsters with someone by your side for once.

A loud **thud** shook Shermy out of his thoughts. “Woah, what was that?!” he exclaimed, jumping up into an action pose. Next to him, Beth looked out at the landscape. “Check it out, Sherm!” she said, pointing. Shermy followed her gaze over to a towering pink machine with a glass head. Birds hovered around the titan’s head, squawking incessantly.

“I’ve read about this guy. The Prize Ball Guardian. Nobody seems to know much about him, but all the citizens of the ancient Candy Kingdom are trapped inside that big glass head of his.”

“Trapped? He must be holding them captive! Come on, Beth, let’s go grease this guy!” Shermy yelled excitedly. He and Beth started sprinting across the plains towards the Guardian.

 

The Prize Ball Guardian was much more formidable up close, but fortunately it didn’t seem to take much notice of the adventuring duo. Shermy drew his sword from his bag and unfolded it to its full length. “Beth, get me up there!” he called to his friend. Beth opened up her belly button portal, and Shermy jumped through it. He found himself high, high up on the Guardian, digging into the metal right above its arm with his little cat claws. Shermy scaled the side of the giant, working his way up towards the glass head. Now, he could see all the little prize capsules inside the glass box, with little candy people inside.

“Intruder! State your business immediately, in the name of Princess Bubblegum!”

Shermy looked over to see a weird yellow two-headed thing with a jetpack and a pink gun, floating in the air.

“My business? I’m here to free the candy people from this big jerk! You wanna get in my way?”

The yellow guy raised his gun and pointed it at Shermy. “Discontinue all activities regarding the Guardian or I shall be forced to take action, in the name of Princess Bubblegum!”

“Yeesh, I get it, the name of Bubblegum or whatever. You wanna fight or what?” Shermy responded, raising his sword.

Then, with a laser blast from the yellow guy, Shermy’s limbs froze up and he tumbled from the Guardian helplessly. He was gripped by panic for a moment before he realized: oh yeah, he’s a cat. A hundred feet later, Shermy landed on his paws on the ground softly, without harm. He stood up on two legs with a dramatic flair, and exclaimed “Ta-da! A cat always lands on his feet!” to Beth, who responded with a resolute round of applause.

“Very nice, Shermy. I’d give that landing a good 10. Try to be a bit more careful next time, though, will you?” she said. Shermy rolled his eyes- Beth was always so protective. He knew how to handle himself. But he couldn’t deny that it was nice to have someone looking out for him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he responded, as the footsteps of the Prize Ball Guardian receded into the distance. “You think we can still knuckle-sandwich this guy?”

“Naw, let him go, Shermy. We’ll catch him some other day. Besides, we still have to find a place to live.”

“Oh, yeah! I’ve always wanted a house.”

Shermy scrambled up Beth’s side and perched atop her head, and the two set out to find their next adventure (and a house).


	2. Princess Zip Comes to Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy and Beth meet a new Princess from beyond...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made a map of Ooo for this story. You can see it on my tumblr (https://thedinosaurnerd.tumblr.com/).

So far, the house hunt wasn’t quite going as well as planned. Shermy was having fun, no doubt, but the search had turned up nothing so far. He and Beth had stumbled upon a number of candidates: there was the former Candy Kingdom, which had plenty of buildings to dwell in. It had seemed nice enough at first, but then they ran into a floating purple blob that called themselves L.S.P. and that had driven the two away with annoyance and hostility (“How are cats still a thing? Christ, it’s 3000-9!”). They had found a large floating structure that seemed to be a house, but once they went inside it turned out to be alive. They spent the next ten minutes trying to escape its stomach. There was that tiny shack that turned out to belong to a mouse, the cave that had started screaming the moment they went inside, and then the house on the edge of the Fire Kingdom that wasn’t exactly hot, but was too uncomfortably warm to be habitable. So the hunt continued.

Right now, Shermy and Beth were wandering in the lands near the Big Tree, the one that had been there for a thousand years. In the distance, the foreboding peaks of the Ice Thingdom rose into the air, clouds swirling around the icy summits. Legend said that, in the Ice Thingdom, you could hear Ice Thing’s laughter no matter where you were. Shermy hadn’t ever been, but he planned to go once his adventuring skills were a bit more touched up. The Ice Thing was the most feared being in all of Ooo, which naturally meant he was high on Shermy’s ‘List of Things to Fight’. But that was a villain for another day. For now, his goal was to find a home, and- hey, what’s that sound?

As if to respond to Shermy’s train of thought, Beth tapped his shoulder and said “Hey, do you hear that?” They both looked up into the sky to see a small dot approaching from the sky. The dot grew in size, the sound like a crashing airplane growing louder. It looked like a… flying saucer?

“Hey, Sherm, do you think maybe we should move?”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” Beth quickly scooped Shermy up in her arms and dashed to the side, getting out of the way just in time as the falling object smashed into the ground with a shattering boom. Shermy and Beth tumbled to the ground as dirt and junk showered down on them. The cat stood up on his paws and looked over to the still-smoking crater; embedded in the dirt and rock was a metal disc with a glass cockpit- so yeah, it was pretty much just a flying saucer.

“Whoah, dude! Visitors from space!”

“We don’t know that it’s from space, Sherm. Could be some kind of… experimental aircraft? Built by… someone?”

The cockpit opened up with a burst of steam to reveal a gray alien (like, a classic, big-eyes-small-mouth gray alien) at the controls.

“Or maybe it’s aliens,” Beth conceded.

 

Shermy slowly slinked up towards the crashed spaceship, curious. The alien was letting out a hoarse and almost electrical sounding cough. “Um, excuse me? Visitor from space?” he questioned, apprehensively. “Are you alright?”

The gray alien finally took notice of the cat, and responded with a series of electronic chirps and warbling.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Princess Zip! What brings you to Ooo?”

Princess Zip did a raspberry and made some synthesizer sounds.

“Sent off course? Well, that sounds like a pretty tough pickle, your highness.”

Beth joined Shermy’s side. “Yeah, Princess, is there anything we can do to help?”

Princess Zip let out some more warbling, a bleep-bloop, and a digitized fart sound.

“If you think you’re going to be here that long, we’d love to show you around!” Shermy said. “Plus, if you’re a Princess, you’re going to need a princess crown. All the princesses we know have one of those.”

Princess Zip let out an affirmative chirp.

“Awesome! Hey, Beth, you know what time it is?”

“Um, well, we just had lunch a little bit ago, so it’s probably around-“

“No, no, no. It’s Adventure Time! By which I mean, time to go search for a crown.”

“Oh, ok. Cool.”

 

And so, Shermy and Beth and their new extraterrestrial friend set out to find a crown! They first traveled to the nearest, easiest dungeon, which according to Shermy regularly respawned its sweet, sweet loot. The entrance to the dungeon was quite clearly labeled as ‘The Easy DungeonTM’ and, quite accurately, it was pretty darn easy. There was the riddlemaster at the entrance whose riddle was ‘What is in my pockets?” even though his pockets were turned out, the one dragon that had left the Dragon Kingdom because it couldn’t breathe fire, and the ogre that couldn’t fight but had a major in philosophy (which actually did keep Beth from finishing the dungeon, as she sat down to talk with it for like ten minutes). Shermy and Princess Zip alone reached the final prize of the dungeon: the Ever-Regenerating, Mediocre Money Pile of Loot. They dug around in it for a while, and Shermy found some cool mugs and a snow globe, but no crown.

Beth suggested going to the Library to find a book about royalty and the origin of crowns, but Shermy voiced **great** discontent with this plan ("Beth, you know I think the library is a big ham-pit for dinguses!"). He instead advocated that they just go find Dragon Princess and ask her where she got her crown.

“I found it in the dump,” said Dragon Princess. So they went to the dump. After digging around old cars and planes and bags of ratty clothes, they found a crown. Success! Shermy pulled the gold crown with the blue gem out of the trash pile victoriously and held it high above his head. “Here it is!” he yelled, handing the crown over to Princess Zip, who responded with a series of appreciative bleeple-blopples.

“No problem! What are you going to do now?”

Princess Zip warbled, beeped, then made an autoharp sound.

“Well, that sounds like a good plan. Good luck with your transmitting beacon!”

At that, Princess Zip blasted off into the sky, flying back to her spaceship to harvest the parts for her base of operations and transmitting beacon.

“I didn’t know she could fly,” said Beth.


	3. Psycho-Rock Attack!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy and Beth save the Hot Dog Kingdom from a brain-scrambling psycho-rock!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude. Slow down a little bit. What happened?” asked Shermy.

“The Hot Dog Kingdom is under attack! There’s a psycho-rock wreaking havoc as we speak!” screeched Jim the Hot Dog Knight. “Hot Dog Princess is probably in danger!”

“Probably?” questioned Beth.

“I- well, I left before anything happened to the princess directly, but considering the circumstances I think it’s safe to assume that-“

“Okay, alright, calm down. We’ll take care of it. Come on, Beth!” Shermy drew his sword from his bag and charged off towards the Hot Dog Kingdom. Beth looked at Jim and shrugged, before heading off after him.

 

In the distance, Shermy could see the psycho-rock floating around the Hot Dog Kingdom, zapping the brains of the poor hot dog people and scrambling their brainwaves. One of the remaining Hot Dog Knights threw a sausage-spear at the psycho-rock, which bounced off the side of the rock and fell to the ground. The Hot Dog Knight proceeded to faint from fear.

Shermy charged in through the front gates with his sword raised. “Listen up, dillweed!” he yelled at the rock. “I’m gonna grease ya!” The psycho-rock responded by firing off its brain blasts at Shermy. He deflected them, sending the blasts into the ground (which, as it had no brainwaves, was unaffected). Shermy charged at the psycho-rock with an epic war cry (war meow?) and lunged into the air at it like an agile cat. He gave the rock a good slash with his sword, then scratched it with his cat claws as he went past. Shermy landed on his feet (as always), and dodged another brain blast. But then, one of the hot dog citizens screamed, distracting Shermy. Another brain blast hit him square in the face, making his head feel all weird and scrambled. Shermy flopped around, dazed, before falling flat on his back.

As the psycho-rock turned to continue its brainwave-scrambling rampage, a portal opened up above it, and through it fell an old pre-Mushroom-War bus. The bus landed on the rock and crushed it into rubble. After that, Beth wandered through the gate and looked around. With the psycho-rock subdued, the hot dog people were starting to recover, their brainwaves unscrambling. Shermy got up on his feet, wobbling like he was dizzy. “Are you okay, Sherm?” asked Beth.

“I’mjustGREAT! Thanksss for askinnn…” he muttered in response.

Beth chuckled as Shermy wobbled around, disoriented. “I think you’ll be okay,” she said, mostly to herself. At that, Hot Dog Princess tumbled down from a roof and approached them. “Thank you for your help, as always, guys!” Beth gave her a thumbs up as she picked Shermy up by the head. “No problem, Hot Dog Princess. Let us know if you need anything else!”

With the Hot Dog Kingdom saved, Beth and Shermy set back out into Ooo to find a home.


	4. Into the Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finding an abandoned minecart, Shermy and Beth land themselves in deep trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Farawayanon for indirectly inspiring this episode. Later on, I'll probably do an episode more directly inspired by your request.

Shermy and Beth were taking a break from their house hunt to have some fun. So far, the day had been going well- no spontaneous monster attacks, no kingdoms in need of saving, no weirdos showing up to ruin the day. They were wandering around near the border of the Ice Thingdom, which seemed a bit dangerous, but they weren’t really worried. The Ice Thing would probably ignore them.

Shermy looked ahead and spotted something on a hill. “What is that, Beth?”

“I dunno, Sherm,” she responded. Beth opened up a portal for Shermy to jump in to check it out. The cat disappeared, then reappeared over on the hill ahead. “It’s a minecart track!” he yelled. “It looks really flippin old, but there’s still a working cart on it!”

Beth started running up to meet Shermy. After maybe ten seconds or so (Shermy wasn’t really paying attention), she reached him.

“Dude! This thing is so cool! It’s like a ramp!” Shermy motioned down the track, where it went down the hill before curving up at the end. It was like a ramp. “Let’s ride it down!”

Beth almost said no. Almost. I mean, it looked really _really_ dangerous. But Shermy looked so excited and he’s a _cat_ for crying out loud. And to be honest, it did look kinda fun too. “Alright, we can ride it. Just hold on tight.” Shermy whooped and scrambled up into the cart, before Beth simply stepped into it and sat. She bent over and pushed the cart off, letting it slowly slide down the hill before starting to gain speed. The cart hit the ramp and flew up into the air.

Shermy whooped again. “I can see my house from here!”

Beth laughed. “We don’t have a house, Shermy.”

The cart soared up into the air, going a lot higher than Beth expected. It nearly touched the clouds, and at one point a bird flew past, with Shermy laughing the whole time. In the distance, they could see the Big Tree and the space elevator of the Pup Kingdom. And farther away, there were what appeared to be big broken down statues. Shermy and Beth hadn’t gone that far in that direction yet.

Then, the minecart started to descend. It reached the height of its flight, stopped, then started to fall. At first, it wasn’t falling too fast, and Beth wasn’t too worried; Shermy would definitely be fine and Beth probably would be too. But then, the cart’s path passed the border of the Ice Thingdom. Shermy also noticed where they were heading, and his look of exhilaration turned to one of… more exhilaration. He was really bad with dangerous situations.

The minecart struck the peak of one of the ice mountains along its descent, sending shards of ice flying down into the snow and mist. The cart fell past the clouds that clung to the ice mountains, before colliding with a snowbank and sliding down a hill to its final stop.

Shermy was practically screaming in excitement. “Beth! That was awesome! Let’s do it again!” It took a moment for him to pick on Beth’s uneasiness, but his grin dropped a little when he did.

“Shermy, do you know where we are?”

“Pfft. Yeah, I know where we are. The Ice Thingdom.”

“We gotta get out of here. Come on, Sherm.” Beth quickly dislodged herself from the crashed cart and grabbed Shermy by the head.

“Beth, come on, man, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Wait, hold on… look, anyways, we’ll be fine! If that Ice Thing jerk wants to go, we can take him!”

“Shermy, you can’t fight the Ice Thing! No one can! We should just get out of here before he finds out-“

Beth was cut off by a distant cackling. The sound started off distant at first, echoing, then increased in volume until it was bouncing off of every ice peak around. The laughter was deranged, unhinged, just absolutely nightmarish. Beth tucked Shermy under her arm to keep him safe.

A sharp ice bolt flew down from the clouds above and speared the snowbank. It was followed by the Ice Thing himself, the gems in his eyes glowing. The Thing launched another ice blast, which Beth jumped to narrowly avoid. She put Shermy on her back as he drew his sword, waving it around and yelling things like “Bring it, ice pickle! I’m gonna whack ya where it hurts!”

Beth jumped around the edge of an ice hill and ran in the direction that she hoped would get them out. If necessary, she was willing to use her portals to get Shermy out first, but that would be a last resort. The cackling behind her grew louder, and she briefly turned back to see- the Ice Thing was gaining quickly, flashing a wide sharp-toothed grin. The gems glowed again, as the Thing prepared another attack-

Out of nowhere, a pink laser blast struck the Ice Thing, sending it flying into a nearby snowbank. Beth and Shermy looked over to find a person with a brown coat and bright red boots, standing on the edge of an icy embankment. They were firing with what looked to be a laser gun from the Pup Kingdom. The person fired again upon the Ice Thing, who retaliated with a snow cloud, blowing the person’s hood back. It was a pale lady with black hair and two sharp fangs.

The lady fired the laser gun again, striking the Ice Thing right in one of his gems. He fled into the icy distance, still cackling all the while.

The lady slid down the ice hill and landed on her feet, sprinting over to meet Shermy and Beth.

“Woah!” exclaimed Shermy. “That was totally rad, dude! Who are you?”

The lady thought for a moment. “That doesn’t really matter. This is no place for two kids like you, ya know.”

“We know,” said Beth, giving Shermy a pointed look. “We kinda got… lost.”

“No kidding.” The lady pulled out a telescope from her backpack and started climbing up a hill. Shermy and Beth followed. From the top, the lady stared out in the distance, looking.

“You can get out of here that way,” she said, pointing to distant green land beyond the ice peaks. “Get yourselves home, guys.”

Shermy laughed. “We don’t have a home! We’ve been on a house-hunting adventure. It’s pretty fun,” he said cheerily. The lady thought again, before pulling out a map. She set it down on the ground, and pointed to a spot in the corner.

“You guys know where this is?”

“Yeah, “said Beth. “That’s by the old crag fields.”

“There’s a house there, in a cave. It’s my old place, you can have it.”

“Wow! Thanks, man!” yelled Shermy. “We’ll take good care of it!”

“No problem, kid. I’m sure you will.” She ruffled the fur on top of his head. To her, he seemed very familiar…

Beth picked Shermy back up and the two started walking away towards the green fields of Ooo. At the last minute, Beth turned around to face the mysterious lady again.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“I… I’m looking for someone.”

“In the Ice Thingdom?”

“It’s a long story. You kids get home, ok?”

Beth nodded, and Shermy gave her a thumbs up. They headed off towards the green at the edge of the ice fields. The lady put her hood back up and disappeared back into the snow and fog.


	5. A Cavern Shaped Like Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy and Beth follow the mysterious lady's directions to a little house in a cave.

Shermy looked up at the cave entrance. “You think this is it?” he asked.

Beth looked around. A little ways behind them were those huge statues they had seen. The cave was flooded, the water flowing out into a small pond lined with cattails. Behind the cave, the rocky Crag Fields rose up before falling away into the ocean. “This looks like where that lady said it was,” she responded. She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, I guess we better get exploring. You know what time it is?”

“… Adventure Time?”

“Now you’re getting the hang of it! Let’s go, Beth!”

Shermy led the charge into the dark and spooky cave. He waded into the water, which came up to his waist. Beth followed, the water barely reaching her ankles. At first, it was too dark to see, but then Shermy’s cat eyes adjusted to the dim light. There, in the middle of the cave, was a quaint little pink cottage. The house was slightly raised on struts to keep it above the water level. Shermy waded around to the side of the house, where there was a door with a circular window, like a porthole. Around the back of the house, he could see a raised deck. Grinning, Shermy looked back around at Beth. “Looks like this is the place,” he said.

 

The living room of the house looked like it was comfy once. The walls were painted a nice pink, and the floor was covered in a soft blue carpet. Besides that, the room was in pretty bad shape. There were papers and pillows and cups scattered about the floor. There was an old workbench set up against the far wall, under the window to the kitchenette. In the corner by the door, there was a tree stump that had somehow grown inside the house, its branches curling up against the ceiling and going up to the attic. Shermy took a deep breath in through his nose.

“Smells like home,” he said, as Beth squeezed in through the door. “Smells like dust,” she responded jokingly. “How is there a tree in here?”

“Beth, I’ll admit it’s a bit of a fixer-upper. But I’ve got a good feeling about this place!”

The first order of business was to clear up some of the stuff on the floor. Beth picked up some of the stray items and stored them in her belly button, while Shermy went about pushing the stuff into corners. He picked up an old mug that sat in a corner on top of a cushion; it read ‘World’s Greatest Uncle’.

With the floor cleared, Shermy proposed his new plan for the house. “Beth, this place is full of awesome ancient artifacts. I think that we should go out and look for even more cool stuff to put here!”

“That sounds like fun. You wanna go now?”

 

And so, Shermy and Beth set out on a new house-furnishing adventure! Their first destination was the old Candy Kingdom, which was just a little ways from the cave. (Hopefully, they wouldn’t run into that LSP thing again.) The crossed the Dusty Old Desert and wandered the huge industrial city around the ancient Candy Castle. They found a number of things- old paper cups, a VR headset, some old metal cans, cardboard boxes, and even some fancy plates, which Beth stored in her belly button.

Next, they crossed the river and entered the Grasslands, avoiding the Pup Kingdom and heading for the Big Tree. Beth had mentioned that there was some junk scattered that general area. The two dug around in the dirt around the roots for a while, finding some broken glass and wood and other debris. Shermy’s foot tripped over something metal while he was digging, continuing to find a large pear-shaped object.

“The heck is it?” asked Shermy.

“Looks like an old bathysphere,” Beth responded. “I’ve read about these. You could use them to dive deep in the ocean.”

“You think we can get it home?”

“… I don't see why not.”

 

Beth ended up dragging the bathysphere back to the house (Shermy had insisted on helping to share the load, but Beth wouldn’t have any of it. She didn't want him to break his spine or something nasty like that). They placed the bathysphere on the back porch and went back inside. As they went in through the kitchenette door, Shermy noticed the ladder going up to the attic once again.

“Hey, we haven’t checked upstairs yet! Come on, Beth!” he exclaimed, already scrambling his way up the ladder. Beth smiled and followed.

The upstairs room looked like it was once a bedroom. There was a bed, a desk with some old recording equipment, a couch in the corner, and a closet, with a little bathroom off to the side. There were wires and nails in the walls, where it seemed some kind of frames or trophies were once hung up. There was a little banjolele propped up against the wall.

“Woah!” exclaimed Shermy, as Beth climbed up into the room. “It’s the lair of a musician! I wonder what’s in this closet…”

Shermy scurried over to the closet and opened it. There were a few random knickknacks and some clothes, but the thing that really caught Shermy’s eye was a box labeled ‘Christmas lights’. He grabbed the box and dragged it out into the open, grinning. “Beth, I’ve got another idea!”

 

Shermy looped the end of the lights over the windvane on top of the house. “Try it now!” he shouted down. Beth hit a button attached to the string, and the multicolored lights twinkled to life. The lights faintly lit the inside of the cave, reflecting off the water around them. Beth stepped up onto the back porch, by the bathysphere, and looked up at the Christmas lights stringed up around their new home. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

Shermy nimbly scrambled down from the top of the house to sit down next to his best friend. “Beth, I think we're home.”

“Agreed, Sherm.” Shermy curled up into Beth’s side and drifted off to sleep.


	6. Dungeon!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy finds a new dungeon to explore!

Renovations were still underway in Shermy and Beth’s new house. The two had been bringing in new furniture and stuff from the dump and other places around Ooo. Beth had been working on twisting the branches of the tree in the corner into a sort of cat perch for Shermy. Today, however, they were taking a break from their work. It was a cooler day than normal, and an eerie wind had swept across the land and into their cave.

“Hey Beth,” said Shermy, his legs dangling off the back deck. Beth sat beside him, her feet splashing around in the water below them.

“Yeah, Sherm?”

“Think I’m gonna go explore the Crag Fields today. Maybe I’ll find a dungeon! Or something cool like that. You wanna come with?”

“Nah. You go on ahead, have fun. Just stay safe, ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” insisted Shermy as he stood. “I’ll let you know if I find any cool treasure!” The little cat dashed off through the house, collecting his bag on the way, before heading out of the cave.

 

The Crag Fields were a huge mountain range that rose up along the northern coast of Ooo. Shermy had been out climbing around the steep rocky inclines for nearly the whole morning. Around him, sharp jagged stones rose up forebodingly, an odd bush or tree poking up out of the mountainsides. Sometimes, an old pre-Mushroom-War structure could be found among the old rock. From his vantage point, Shermy could see many things. In one direction, to the east, there were the old statues near the foot of the Fields, and further off the Pup Kingdom’s space elevator and the Big Tree reaching up into the gray sky. To the east, he could vaguely see the icy peaks of the Ice Thingdom. To the north, past the edge of the Crag Fields, he could see the vast rolling ocean.

Shermy started scrambling down another slope into a steep rocky valley. At the bottom were a few mathematical-looking relics; an old soda can, some stamps, and an old toy, all of which Shermy stuck into his bag. There was also an old broken-down car, which Shermy obviously couldn’t fit in his bag.

Then, something else caught his eye. Behind the car, in the side of a high rocky slope, was a dark opening. Stalactites lined the edge of the cave like teeth, and two holes above resembled evil-looking eyes. Shermy excitedly approached the cave entrance, finding that there were bricks laid into the ground and mysterious carvings on the walls.

A dungeon.

"Aww, yeah! It's Dungeon Time!" Shermy whooped, drawing his sword, before heading into the darkness.

 

Shermy found himself at the top of a great staircase leading down into the dungeon. The cavern ahead of him was vast and cool-looking, with all sorts of side passages and stone castles and spires. He skipped down the steps, jumping over the one that was cleaner than the others- as he did, the stair grew teeth and snapped at him. Shermy landed gracefully at the bottom of the stairs, laughing. Around him were piles of old bones and skulls, one of them huge and with several eye-holes. From one of the sockets emerged what first appeared to be a snake. Then, Shermy saw that it had strange arms (human arms?) and its tongue, as it flicked out, had a third eye on the end.

“Greetingssss, traveler. What is it you sssseek?”

“I wanna fight stuff! And have fun!”

The snake-thing scowled. “Truly… _noble_ motives. Ssseriously though, you don’t have any deeper reasonssss?”

“Hey, man, what else is a dungeon for?”

“Hmmm…. Fair enough, I ssssupossse. If it’sss a fight you want- well, you know.” The snake-thing reached into the eye socket and retrieved two small blades.

“Aww, yeah!” yelled Shermy. He raised his sword and charged at the snake-thing, letting out a loud and awesome war cry (war meow).

 

Shermy blasted his way through the dungeon, battling awesome and strange monsters and solving all sorts of puzzles (there was a giant puzzle cube, a big crossword puzzle, and a few sliding puzzles). He ran down a stone stair above a great chasm towards a pyramid on the other side- but as he did, the stair crumbled beneath him! Shermy tumbled down into the chasm, landing in a great underground river at the bottom. Shermy was swept away by the waves down a long stone tunnel, simultaneously screaming and laughing the whole way down.

The river ended in a little waterfall that cascaded out of a stone tunnel into a large underground lake. Shermy swam for the opposite shore, reaching dry ground just in time to escape the reach of the sea serpent circling around in the depths. Shermy now found himself standing before a large stone archway, which led into another darkened room. He dashed into the new chamber, finding himself surrounded by stone structures intertwined with dark green vines. Ahead, there was a raised gallery high up above the ground, with twin staircases leading up to it on either side.

“Hello!” shouted Shermy. “Any monsters wanna throw down?!” The sound echoed throughout the stone chamber, before fading into silence.

From the gallery rose the head of a long-toothed purple animal; it reminded Shermy of something Beth had shown him in an old book (what was the name? Gorgonopsid?) Placing its paws on the edge of its high ledge, the creature locked eyes with Shermy and put on a chilling smile.

“Ah, you’re just in time,” the creature drawled. “I was starting to get hungry.”

The creature began walking smoothly down the vertical wall, defying the very laws of gravity. It stepped out into the center of the chamber, its teeth glinting in the light from a glowing crystal in the ceiling.

“How do you taste, little cat?” the creature growled.

“I taste like… your doom!” responded Shermy, raising his sword. “I’m not afraid of you!” The creature laughed condescendingly at that, and it visibly grew in size. “Oh, but you should be…”

The beast pounced, extending its claws and swiping at Shermy. He dodged and blocked a claw with his sword. He swiped his blade at the creature, missing barely. The creature opened its jaws and lunged again, trying to ensnare Shermy between its long sabre-teeth. Shermy swiftly lodged his sword between the beast’s jaws, holding the mouth open.

“Ha! Can’t get me now, can you? Not so scary after all.”

Shermy’s courageous words seemed to have the wrong effect- the creature grew inside, and its jaws grew enough to easily snap Shermy’s sword. Shermy’s ears drooped slightly. “Ah, crud,” he muttered.

The creature laughed deeply and swiped at Shermy again. “I wonder what I’m going to do with you,” it snarled as it prowled slowly towards Shermy. “Maybe I’ll just slurp you down whole. Or maybe I’ll take out our spine and use it as a toothpick. Or… ooh! I could pluck out your eyes for my beaded necklace. Yes, that’s what I’ll do…” Shermy gulped as the beast eyed him hungrily.

The creature pounced again, sabre-teeth bared. Shermy nimbly jumped out of the way and scrambled towards safety. He shoved himself into a tight metal tube in the wall and slid down away from the demon’s lair. As he disappeared down the pipe, the beast called after him, “I’ll have your bones, sooner or later, little kitten! There is no escape!”

 

Shermy landed in a pool of water at the bottom of a deep well. High, high above him, there was a pinprick of light from outside. In the opposite corner, there was a skull wearing a fancy helmet.

“Yeesh,” he muttered, “what a dillweed. I can’t let it see that I’m afraid!”

“That’s your mistake!” a high- pitched voice cried out. It was the skull!

“Whaddya mean, dude?”

“The lair-beast feeds on courage. The less scared its foe is, the stronger it becomes. It gets bigger every time you say you’re not afraid.”

Now that Shermy thought about his fight, that did make sense. “So I have to be afraid to fight it?”

“Aye. Long ago, I too tangled with the lair-beast. I refused to show fear. The thing picked my bones clean and tossed my skull down this old well! I’ve been trapped here ever since.”

“Wow… how long have you been here? Centuries?”

“Maybe like a week or two.”

“Huh. Well, I’m gonna go fight that thing. I can bring you with me! Your skull can fit in my bag!”

“Well alrighty! Let’s get goin, little fella!”

Shermy picked up the old skull and gently placed him inside his sack. He crawled back up into the pipe and started shimmying his way back up to the lair-beast’s lair.

 

The purple lair beast was prowling around the center of the chamber when Shermy reached the top at last. It smelled his cat-ness as he entered the lair, and turned its head to glare at him.

“Back for more, are you? Are you still so unafraid?”

Shermy took a breath. “No! Actually, I’m pretty flipping scared!”

The creature growled as it shrunk in size!

“I mean, how could I not be? You’ve got really big claws! And your teeth are just crazy!”

The lair-beast charged at Shermy, claws raised, as it continued to diminish.

“And that stuff you were saying about plucking my eyeballs or whatever was pretty messed up too! So yeah, I am afraid! But I’m gonna fight you anyways!”

The lair-beast landed in front of Shermy, a murderous glare in its eyes. But it had been reduced to a tiny size as to fit in the palm of his hand. The beast sunk its fangs into his toe, leaving a mark no bigger than a mosquito bite. Shermy kicked the little creature away and started off for the staircase across the room.

 

Shermy finished off a dangerous eye-beast and charged into the dungeon’s final chamber. He was met with a large pile of shimmering coins and rubies.

“Hot dog! The treasure!” exclaimed Shermy and the skull (who was still sitting in Shermy’s bag) at the same time. Shermy whooped and charged for the money pile.

“Skull friend, today we have defeated the dungeon of the Crag Fields! But our hearts were not in the search for treasure, but in the thrill of the battle! We shall not take this gold.”

“Speak for yourself, cat! I want some of this loot!”

“Well, fair enough,” said Shermy. He grabbed a handful of coins and rubies and stuffed them into his bag. “Beth always says we shouldn’t be driven by treasure alone.”

On the other side of the treasure pile was a pool of water that flowed into a nearby pipe, which was labeled ‘Escape, or something to that effect!’ Shermy leapt into the pool and swam into the current. The water gained speed, carrying Shermy and his skull friend up through tunnels and caverns. Suddenly, the water tunnel opened out into bright, dazzling daylight. Shermy and the skull fell into a shallow pool of water at the bottom of a valley out in the Crag Fields.

Jumping out of the bag, the skull turned to face Shermy. “Cat, you’ve been a great help. Thank you for helping me to escape!”

“No problem, skull friend. You can have half the loot.”

The skull took his share of the treasure, holding it between his teeth, and started hopping off (probably to find himself a skeleton body). Shermy waved goodbye, before scaling a nearby slope to get his bearings. After a moment of looking around, he located the Big Tree and the Pup Kingdom in the distance, and set off towards his home.

 

Beth heard the door open and turned away from the wooden plank she was fixing into place. “Hey, how was it?”

“It was algebraic!” yelled Shermy. “I found a dungeon, and fought a bunch of monsters and met a skull guy! And we got some treasure!” Shermy opened his bag to show off a few pieces of shiny gold.

“Very pretty,” said Beth. “Sounds like a pretty fun dungeon.”

“Yeah! I lost my sword, though. I’ll have to find a new one sometime soon.”

“Well, in the meantime, I’m almost finished with these perches for you.” Indeed, the tree branches that had reached around the corners of the room had been reworked into a series of elevated ledges along the walls. Little leaves hung from the branches, and the shelves held a number of the items that they had found in their travels, as well as some pillows for Shermy to rest on.

“Woah! Pretty cool, Beth!” Shermy scrambled up the wall and started running back and forth on the little perch, going around the whole room and laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!


	7. Lower Ooorbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy heads to the Pup Kingdom to find Pawn Swan.

Beth climbed down from the attic to find Shermy packing his sack. “You going somewhere, Sherm?”

“Yeah! I’m gonna go look for Pawn Swan. I’m hoping he’ll sell me some cooking ingredients.”

“Cooking ingredients? What are you gonna do with cooking ingredients?”

“Cook! What else?”

“Shermy, since when do you cook?”

Shermy shrugged as he finished packing his bag. “Beth, I’ll have you know I am as much a chef as I am an adventurer!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she teased. “Have fun,” she said, as the cat stepped through the door.

“Aye-aye, Beth!” Shermy yelled, skipping through the water out of the cave.

 

The Pup Kingdom was always a good guess when looking for Pawn Swan, so that’s where Shermy headed first. Having passed the old Candy Kingdom and crossed the river, he was now in the grasslands. He followed the old winding road under the blue and red archways to the main yellow wall of the Kingdom, which had only one large red door. Above the locked gate were a camera and a little speaker.

As Shermy approached, a tinny voice aired over the speakerphone. “Who goes there!” it yelled.

“Kris, you know it’s me. Shermy. I’m looking for Pawn Swan, you seen him?”

“Yeah, he went up the space elevator. Come on in!” The blue bars swung to the side and the red door opened. Shermy followed the path through the outer wall, stopping at the little guard building on the other side. A green pup wearing the standard Pup Kingdom uniform (which was really just a t-shirt) leaned out the window to give him a fistbump.

“How’s it goin, cat-man?”

“Pretty darn mathematical, Kris! Been doing plenty of adventuring lately.”

“Nice. You said you were looking for Pawn Swan?”

“Yeah! Got some sweet loot from a dungeon the other day that I wanna spend.”

“Well, I hope you’re ready for an elevator ride into lower orbit. Let me know how it goes!” Kris said as Shermy started walking away.

“Will do, Kris!” Shermy yelled over his shoulder.

 

Back in the cave, Beth inspected the leaves hanging from one of the tree branches in the living room. There was a small vine with several small green spheres attached to it.

“Weird,” she muttered. “Doesn’t look like any plant I’ve seen. Maybe the library has something about it.” Beth moved away from the leaves and headed for the door.

 

“Alright, cat kid, one two-way space elevator ticket,” the ticket-person (ticket-pup, I guess) said, handing Shermy a ticket with the Pup Kingdom symbol (sort of fancy-looking letter G) printed on it.

“Thanks, ticket-person!” Shermy exclaimed, heading off to board the next space elevator. There wasn’t a very long line, fortunately, and Shermy was able to get on within maybe half a minute. He scrambled into the pink elevator-pod and buckled himself into one of the seats. There were two pups sitting cross from him, plus the pilot at the front. There was a ding sound as the doors slid closed, and then the elevator-pod shook as it was lifted up into a vertical position and locked into the elevator track. Shermy looked out the window at the front, which was facing skywards. There was a loud blast, and the elevator-pod flew upwards, clearing the glass tube and shooting up the track skywards. The gray clouds that covered all the land slowly drew closer and closer, before completely enveloping the elevator-pod. A few minutes passed where Shermy couldn’t see anything except gray outside the window, and then the elevator-pod cleared the cloud cover. Another handful of minutes passed, and the sky started to turn dark as the elevator-pod approached outer space.

Shermy knew that it would be a few minutes before the elevator-pod reached the space station. He turned his attention to the two pups sitting across from him. They were talking fairly loudly to each other.

“You heard anything about the Pup Princess?”

“Nothin. I heard that King Gibbon’s started toning down the search parties.”

“What do you think she did? It would have to be a lot for Gibbon to make his own granddaughter Public Enemy #2, don’t ya think? I mean, that’s right under Ice Thing. Has to count for somethin.”

“She’s an enemy of the Kingdom. Does it really matter what she did?”

“I guess not. Anyways, how was your weekend?”

At that, Shermy tuned out the conversation. The Pup Princess… whoever it was, she sounded like a real villain! Shermy placed her on his ‘List of Things to Fight’, right under the Ice Thing.

 

A minute later, Shermy looked back out the front window. Above, the Pup Kingdom’s main space station came into view, coming closer and closer.

The elevator-pod slid to a stop, locking into place in the landing station. It was rotated into position, nd the door slid open with another ding. Shermy unbuckled himself, grabbed his bag, and dashed out onto the space station. There were a few pups and various strange creatues milling about, but Shermy instantly spotted Pawn Swan’s stand over in the corner. He sprinted over, already rummaging in his bag for the gold pieces he got from the dungeon.

“Pawn Swan! Hi!”

“Shermy the cat, it’s good to see you! Last time we met, I sold you some glue!” Pawn Swan cried out in his electronically-modulated voice.

“I remember! I was wondering if you have some flour and sugar. I’ve got some cooking to do.”

“I have the things you want to buy! With these supplies, you could bake a pie!” Choose Goose rummaged around in his large crate of merchandise before finally pulling out two sacks of flour and sugar. “For these supplies to you be sold, you’ll have to give me four pieces of gold.”

Shermy handed over four pieces of gold from his bag, receiving in turn the bags of cooking supplies.

“Thanks, Pawn Swan!”

“As an added bonus for your kindness, take this length of rope! In dark times, may it give you hope!” Shermy pulled out a long coil of black rope from his crate and handed it over. Shermy happily took it and stuffed it into his bag. "Shermy the cat, it's always a pleasure! I hope these supplies will help you find... treasure!"

"I'm sure they will! See you later, Pawn Swan!" Shermy waved to Pawn Swan as he walked off.

 

Beth sat down at one of the library seats with a book called “Old-World Botany and Gardening”. Unlike most of the books at the library, it wasn’t a holo-book; it was a bona-fide, old-fashioned paper book with pages and everything. Beth opened the book and went to the Table of Contents. She scrolled down the list before finding a line labeled “Vine-Based Plants”. The little plant-thing back home was sort of a vine, right? Beth flipped to the page number and started reading.

It didn’t take very long to find what she was looking for. In the center of the page was a drawing of the spherical plants she had seen, although they were a bit larger-looking. The strange plant was labeled ‘Grapes’. Interesting.

 

Shermy spent some more time wandering around the space station and looking out the window. Outside, there was what looked like a wedding going on atop a big crystal platform. It looked pretty fun. Shermy wondered if people did stuff like that in space a whole lot. They probably did, he decided. He’d rather stay on Ooo.

After his little excursion, Shermy headed back to the space elevator. His two-way ticket was checked by another ticket-pup, and he boarded the next elevator-pod going down. It was rotated into position, facing downwards this time, and with a loud rocket blast started flying down the elevator track back towards Ooo. From space, you couldn’t see any of the land- everything appeared as a sea of gray, besides a little brown and green spot that Shermy thought might be the Big Tree out in the grasslands.

The descent was usually easier- once they got close enough to Ooo, the rocket jets were turned off and gravity would do the work. The elevator-pod slid down the track, the Pup Kingdom below drawing ever closer. The elevator-pod entered the glass tube and slowed to a stop inside the launching station, rotating back onto the ground and letting the passengers off. Shermy jumped out excitedly (as always), ready to go back home.

Shermy entered the little house to find Beth closely inspecting something hanging off the tree branches. “What’re ya looking at, Beth?” he asked.

“There’s these little plants hanging off the tree! I noticed them after you left and I wasn’t sure what they were, so I went to the library, and-“

“Good thing I wasn’t here! You would’ve dragged me to the _library_!” Shermy half-joked.

Beth laughed. “You know it. Anyways, I went to the library to look it up, and they’re actually called grapes! They were pretty popular back before the Mushroom War, and when they turn purple you can eat them! And even better, you can turn them into juice! I was thinking, when these grapes turn ripe, we can start making grape juice!”

“Cool! I like juice, I guess. And ‘grapes’ is a cool word! I’m 1000% down with your grape plan!”

“Yeah! So anyways, how was your day? Did you get what you wanted?”

Shermy nodded as he started taking the supplies out of his bag and taking them to the kitchen. “I had to take the space elevator in the Pup Kingdom to find Pawn Swan, but he had what I needed. I think maybe I’ll make some cookies. Oh, and I overheard some pretty cool biz! There was something about a Pup Princess, I think.”

Beth was glad that Shermy was turned away from her, because she froze in her tracks and paled. “O-Oh, really? What did you, uh, hear?”

“Not much. Just that whoever she is, she’s a real villain! Sounds like someone I’d want to fight. Hey, you’re from the Pup Kingdom, right? Do you know about the Pup Princess?”

“Um… no, I left before all that biz went down. I’ve heard some things, but…”

“Huh. Well, that’s something for another day. I have some cooking to do! Although, that’s also something for another day because it’s getting late and I’m kinda tired. Think I’m gonna turn in.” Shermy jumped up onto the cat perch and nuzzled into a pile of pillows on the upper level.

Beth sighed. “Good night, Shermy.”


	8. The Sweet Giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy and Beth go exploring, and encounter a mysterious giant.

Beth found Shermy sitting on a stool in the kitchenette, staring intently at the cooking ingredients he had bought the other day. “Is this what you call cooking?”

“Pfft. Nah, man. I just haven’t decided what I want to make yet.”

Beth thought for a moment. “How about we go exploring? It’ll clear your head a little.”

“Woah, yeah! Let’s go!” Shermy jumped down from his stool and dashed for the door, Beth right behind him. She paused at the door to say, “Hey, Sherm. You know what time it is?”

Shermy considered it for half a moment before a giant smile grew on his face. “Adventure Time?!”

“You know it! Come on, let’s go.”

 

Shermy and Beth decided to head east, going past the Grasslands and the Big Tree. They went all the way to the big forests in the east- the forests were vast, and Shermy knew there were all sorts of crazy things to find there. It took till afternoon to get there- right now, he and Beth were just wandering in the woods, exploring. Shermy stooped and grabbed something off the ground as he went- it turned out to be a camera, but it didn’t look too old. It definitely wasn’t pre-Mushroom-War tech, to be sure.

“Check it out, Beth! A camera!”

“Woah, cool! Let’s take a picture.”

Beth held the camera in front of them and pulled Shermy in close, snapping a picture of them. A little printed photo flew out of the camera and started drifting towards the ground before Shermy snatched it midair.

“This one’s a keeper!” Shermy stuffed the photograph into his bag, as well as the little camera.

Suddenly, there was a loud **thud** that shook the trees and sent birds flying into the air. Shermy gasped and looked around. “Is it the Prize Ball Guardian?”

His question was answered when he looked up. There he saw a gigantic man with a long beard and two curly horns on either side of his head. There was a large sword strapped to his back.

“Woah…” muttered Beth. “A giant.”

“You think this guy is a bad guy?” Shermy exclaimed, raising his fists.

“I dunno. Might be.”

“Look at that sword, though! It reeks of _evil_. I think. Let’s get him!”

Shermy charged out into an open clearing with a war meow, drawing the attention of the giant. He slowly turned his head and looked down at Shermy.

“Hey, are you evil?! If you are I’ll fight you!”

The giant didn’t seem to hear him from all the way up there. He started slowly leaning down towards Shermy, and the cat started to get ready for a fight. He reached into his bag to get his sword, and-

Oh, yeah. His sword got junked down in the dungeon.

“Oh, breadballs!” Shermy screeched, turning on his heel and running back into the woods. “Runrunrunrunrun!” he chanted as he ran past Beth, who started running after him. She picked Shermy up by the head and place him on her own head. The giant behind them seemed to be walking after them.

Beth and Shermy entered another clearing where they found an old derailed train with an infinity symbol on the side of each train car. They quickly pulled the door open and climbed into one of the cars, closing it behind them. The two waited for a moment, allowing the loud thundering footsteps to recede into the distance.

“Phew. That was close, Beth!”

“No kidding. Maybe next time don’t charge into battle unarmed, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Man, what is this place?”

“It used to be a train, but I’m not sure what it was for. By the looks of it, it just went in a big circle.”

Shermy started poking around the train car. It looked more or less empty- the floor and walls were all tiled. He went to the door that led to the next car. Inside, there was some stuff- some broken crystals that looked to be shaped like ants. Whatever they were, they were destroyed a long time ago.

“Woah,” said Beth as she entered the car. “Those are kinda pretty.”

“I guess.” Shermy picked up a stray gemstone that used to be an eye and stuffed it into his bag.

 

Shermy and Beth spent the rest of the day exploring the ruined train. It seemed to be a sort of mobile dungeon- but after 1000 years, nothing was really working anymore.

Shermy slid open the door to the last train car. By now, it was getting dark out, and the same was true of the inside of the car. It was pitch black inside, and Shermy couldn’t see anything inside. He stepped in slowly, letting his cat eyes slowly adjust to the darkness. In the far corner, he could just about see some kind of shape sitting there. The shape moved, coming out of the corner and seeming to grow in size until it was at an imposing height. “Uh… Beth?” Shermy squeaked.

The shape came into the light, revealing itself as a one-eyed wolf beast with spider legs!!

Shermy yowled in terror and leapt backwards away from the beast. Beth saw him from another train car and stepped out to follow him. “Shermy, are you alr- oh my Glob!”

The wolf-spider-beast growled as it stalked, eyeing Shermy hungrily. Beth started picking up stones and hurling them at the beast’s head. It growled in annoyance and turned to face her instead. It howled, raising its head to the sky.

Out of nowhere, a gigantic fist came down out of the sky and smashed the wolf-spider-beast into the ground. The hand moved away, revealing the beast mostly buried in the ground (and probably with all the broken bones). Shermy’s eyes followed the giant arm up to find that it was the same bearded giant from earlier.

 The giant opened his mouth to speak. “Are you okay?” he asked. Shermy was surprise how normal the voice sounded- it wasn’t particularly deep or loud, it sounded normal. It even sounded kinda sweet. In response to the giant’s question, Shermy just meekly nodded.

“Thank you, giant guy!” called Beth from the other side of the arm.

“No problem. You two seem far from home.”

“Yeah,” said Beth. “We live all the way out near the Crag Fields.”

The giant scratched his beard, thinking. “I can take you to the grasslands. Climb on my hand.” The giant opened his fist and set his hand on the ground palm-up. Shermy looked over at Beth and shrugged, before scrambling up onto the giant’s hand. Beth followed suit, and they both gasped when the hand lifted off the ground and moved upwards. The giant gently placed Shermy and Beth atop his head. From all the way up here, they could see for miles; around them, the forest seemed to go on forever. There were some mountains in the distance, and in the other direction they could just about see the Big Tree and the space elevator.

“Thanks, uh…” Shermy trailed off. “What’s your name?”

“Sweet P,” the giant returned.

“Nice name,” said Beth. “It sounds very kind.”

“Thank you.” The giant started walking in the direction of the grasslands. Shermy curled into Beth’s side.

“Guess he turned out to be pretty cool after all,” he muttered, slowly drifting off to sleep.


	9. Grapefish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy stays behind while Beth goes out to find supplies to make grape juice.

Beth looked away from the cluster of grapes she was inspecting. They had grown much faster than she’d expected, already being purple and ripe after growing for just a few days. The book she had checked out from the library made it clear that it should normally take _much_ longer for grapes to grow. Maybe these grapes were special. In any case, they seemed about ready to be turned into grape juice. Beth had read up on the procedure in the book, and she’d need some supplies for that (not to mention, somewhere to put all the grapes). Beth was going to go out on a little expedition of her own.

Beth found Shermy down in the living room, fiddling with some rope and sticks. “I’m heading out,” she called out. “Try not to burn the house down, Sherm.”

“Where ya going?”

“I want to find some supplies to make grape juice. These grapes grow pretty fast.”

“Sounds cool. Have fun, Beth!”

Beth headed out the door and waded across the pond out the cave. She decided she’d start with the dump- it was always a good place to find spare parts and weird knick-knacks. She set out away from the Crag Fields into the Land of Ooo.

 

Shermy carried his supplies over to the workbench under the window to the kitchenette. He was still planning a meal that would prove once and for all his awesome cooking skills. Earlier that day, he had seen some fish swimming around the water around the house, and that gave him idea. Shermy grabbed some wire sitting on the workbench and tied together the two sticks he had been fiddling with earlier. With his cat-claws, Shermy cut off a length of the rope he had bought from Pawn Swan and tied it around the end. Then, he put on the finishing touch- a bobber and hook he had found on one of his supply runs.

“Let’s hope this works!”

Shermy grabbed his new fishing pole off the workshop and went out the back door to the porch. He sat down and cast the fishing line out into the water.

 

“Oh, this is perfect!” Beth quietly exclaimed. She had pulled a large wooden bucket out of a trash pile in the dump. It was the right size to sit on the tree stump in the corner of the living room back home, and it seemed sturdy. Beth placed the bucket in her belly button portal and continued searching. She climbed a bit further up the trash pile, eventually reaching the top. There, sitting pristinely on top, was the most perfect and convenient thing she could have found: a little canning jar box with the word ‘Juice’ printed on the side. Beth gingerly picked up the container and stored it away.

Then, something on the horizon caught her eye. Four large, crystal-shaped ships were coming towards the dump, scanning the land with spotlights.

 

Shermy had so far learned to things about fishing: one, that the fish didn’t seem to like the dark, and two, that he needed some bait. He grabbed one of the grapes from inside and stuck it on the hook, before heading outside the cave to set up along the well-lit pond. He propped the fishing pole up on a rock among the cattails, then sat down to wait.

After a few minutes, a quiet sound reached Shermy’s big fluffy ears. It was a sort of hissing sound, like compressed air through a hose. The sound shortly grew louder, and Shermy turned around to find its source. From behind the hill, a white cloud drew its way across the sky, trailing through the air towards him. As it approached, Shermy saw that it was actually a… two-headed swan with a jetpack? Was that right?

Yep. It was right. The jetpack swan landed next to Shermy and stared at him with its dead, unforgiving eyes.

“Quack.”

“Uh… hey, swan fellow. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Quack.”

“Yeah, I’m just… sitting here… fishing.”

There was a long moment of silence, before:

“Quack.”

 

Beth ducked under an old plane wing that stuck out precariously from the trash heap. The beam of light from the Pup Kingdom ship passed over, the wing casting a dark shadow above her. She could vaguely hear the soldiers in the ship muttering to one another in Korean.

A whirring sound alerted the arrival of a second ship. A familiar scratchy voice rang out:

“Anything?” It was Gibbon.

“Negative, sir. There’s just too much janky junk here in this trash dump.”

“Hm. Alright, let’s move out. We’re too close to the Ice Thingdom as it is.” The ships began to depart. As they hovered away, Beth caught a glimpse of the white, elderly pup with his pink crystal staff on top of one of the crystal ships.

 

The bobber dipped beneath the glassy surface of the pond, sending ripples through the water. Shermy and the two-headed swan immediately jumped to attention, Shermy grabbing the fishing pole from its post. He waited a moment to make sure there was actually a fish on the line- there was a yank on the line! He had one! Shermy pulled the pole backwards, hooking the fish. The line went back and forth, disturbing the surface of the water. Shermy tried pulling the fish up out of the water, but then he realized he had no idea how to reel in the fish without, you know, a reel.

Suddenly, Shermy felt himself being lifted up into the air. The swan had grabbed his shoulders and was helping to lift the fish out of the water! The fish was hoisted up and landed on the grass, and the swan lowered Shermy back down to the ground.

“Ha!” the cat exclaimed. “Thanks, jetpack-swan!”

“Quack.” With a blast of steam from its jetpack, the two-headed swan took off and flew away. Shermy watched it fly off, before turning his attention to the fish they had caught.

 

Beth dug around in the sand near the old Candy Kingdom. The Dusty Old Desert that surrounded the abandoned metropolis was full of ancient treasures, but it wasn’t particularly pleasant and Beth feared that there might be unseen treasures amidst the sand dunes. Beth stayed near the borders of the old Candy Kingdom, snooping near piles of debris.

It was a glint of light that finally drew Beth’s attention. There was a pile of broken glass sitting by the back end of an old truck- but among the broken shards were four intact glass jars.

“Bingo,” she muttered, taking the jars and storing them away. She had found everything she needed for her grape juice operations. Now it was time to go home.

 

Shermy lobbed the fish into the refrigerator and closed the door. It was getting dark out- too late, he decided, to start any big cooking operations. He voted instead to sit out on the front steps and wait for Beth to get home.

Fortunately for Shermy, at that very moment, the door opened and Beth came in. She pulled a large bucket out of her belly button and set it on top of the tree stump in the corner of the room.

“Hi Beth! How was it?”

“Oh, hey, Sherm. I think I’ve found everything I was looking for. Which means…”

“We can make grape juice!”

“Exactly!” Beth stepped up to examine one of the grape clusters. “I think these are just about ready. And there’s more of them now… these grow really fast.”

Beth yanked the grape cluster off the branch from which it hung. Almost immediately, a new cluster began to grow, starting with a vine then branching into little green spheres. Fast-growing indeed. Beth continued collecting the grapes and dropping them in the bucket. Shermy watched her hurry about the room, eventually finding his eyes starting to droop. The cat mewled out a little yawn, which grabbed Beth’s attention.

“Hey, Sherm, you know what? You go to bed. I’ll finish this up while you’re asleep.”

“Aye-aye-“ Shermy yawned again- “Beth.” Shermy got up from his seat and climbed up to his little sleeping post, curling into his pillows and dozing off. Beth smiled at him before setting off to make some grape juice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that a bunch of these chapters end with shermy falling asleep


	10. The King of Ooo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finding a mysterious relic in Prize Ball Guardian's footprint, Shermy and Beth seek out the legendary King of Ooo.

Shermy pulled the two trays out of the oven and set them on the counter. He had been cooking in the little kitchenette all morning. Beth was still pretty skeptical on his cooking talent, but he was about to prove her wrong! On one tray were a number of little cookies shaped like his face, and on the other was the fish he had caught yesterday.

“Something smells good,” Beth said, as she pulled the freshly-made grape juice out of the fridge and poured it into the glass jars. “You might actually be right.”

“You underestimate me, my friend! I have prepared a meal for us, and I propose we have a picnic!”

“Cool! Sounds like fun. I’m sure we have a big enough blanket around here somewhere… hey, we should invite someone to our picnic!”

“Yeah! Uh… who?”

“How about Princess Zip? We haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Oh yeah! I’ll go call her.” Shermy climbed up the ladder to the bedroom upstairs. Beth started digging around the growing pile of stuff they’d collected for a basket.

 

Shermy checked the picnic basket again- yep, a plate of cookies, a cooked fish, and some of the grape juice they’d put in an old soda bottle. He looked over at Beth, who had the rolled up blanket hoisted up over her shoulder. They had decided to meet down by the Big Tree for their picnic. Princess Zip was supposed to meet them there. Ahead, further down the Grasslands, the tree was getting pretty close.

Another minute passed before they reached the foot of the tree. As Beth laid out the blanket, Princess Zip flew down from the sky and landed next to them, bleep-blooping out a greeting.

“Hello to you too, Princess Zip!” Shermy exclaimed. “Glad you could join us!”

“Yeah, Shermy’s been pretty excited about this stuff he cooked.”

Princess Zip electro-boopled in response.

“Pfft. You guys have no faith in me! Just you wait,” said Shermy, opening his basket and setting out the food he made. Beth picked up one of the Shermy-shaped cookies and took a bite.

“Wow. This is actually really good.”

Princess Zip also picked up a cookie and took a bite. She synthesized approvingly.

“See!” exclaimed Shermy. “I was right all along! This picnic is gonna be mathematical!”

 

Shortly thereafter, the fish had been polished off, half the cookies were eaten, and several glasses of grape juice had been poured. Shermy lounged on top of Beth’s stomach, beatboxing. Beth was doing… something that could maybe be compared to beatboxing. By someone who had never heard beatboxing before. Princess Zip sat off to the side, drinking a cup of grape juice.

Shermy giggled. “You’re doing it wrong! Like this:” Shermy demonstrated his pretty rad beatboxing skills.

Beth responded by blowing a raspberry. “Shermy, this is silly as heck.” She sat up straight, letting Shermy sit on her leg. “Beatboxing is for babies.”

“No, it’s not. I am. A man.”

“I don’t know about that, but you should start thinking about your future.”

Shermy frowned at that and, in an act of rebellion, gave himself a heart-punch and fell flat on his back on the grass.

“What about you, Princess Zip?” he asked. “What are your goals?”

Princess zip whirred and bloobled.

“Ha! Princess Zip’s got a one track mind.”

A sudden loud **thud** interrupted Shermy’s train of thought. Shermy and Beth looked over to see Prize Ball Guardian walking down the Grasslands in the distance. Birds circled his head, as always. Princess Zip took off behind them.

“Prize Ball Guardian’s back!” Shermy yelled. “Let’s get him!”

 

Beth slid into the Guardian’s path with Shermy on her head. “Get that boulder!” Shermy yelled, pointing across the way. Beth opened up a portal and dumped the rock out in front of them. Shermy cat-jumped onto the boulder and pulled the rope out of his bag, tying it around the boulder. He ran across the Guardian’s path to an old tree on the other side, quietly hoping that the rope was as strong as Pawn Swan said. He tied the end of the rope around the tree. “Here it comes!” he yelled.

Prize Ball Guardian’s foot caught on the rope and yanked it right out of place with a twang. Shermy ran up to meet Beth, laughing. “Boy, my knots suck!” he exclaimed, as the Guardian stomped away. The banana guard circling the titan’s head turned around and eyed Shermy warily- evidently, he remembered the last time they’d met. “Yeah, I see you,” Shermy growled (as much as a tiny cat can growl).

“Hey, Sherm, you see this?” Beth said from few feet away.

“Nope.”

“It looks like the Guardian scuffed something up,” she said, pointing at the giant footprint in the ground before them. Shermy scrambled down into the depression and inspected the objected, holding it up. It was an old robot arm!

“Woah!” exclaimed Shermy.

“It’s beautiful! Let’s take it home and I’ll learn about it with my _brain_.”

Shermy snorted. “You and your brain!” He looked back down at the old arm. Somehow, he got the strangest feeling of… familiarity from it. Like something he used to own but forgot about. Shermy scrambled up out of the footprint and handed the metal arm to Beth, who stored it away in her belly button. Shermy climbed up on top of Beth’s head and started humming a tune.

“What’s that song?” Beth asked.

“I dunno. Just popped into my head when I picked up that arm. It feels familiar. Like something an old friend would sing.”

“Huh.”

Shermy continued humming the song as they went home, eventually adding words:

“On a tropical island, on a tropical island…”

 

Shermy and Beth waded into the cave and entered the house. As they stepped through the door, Shermy jumped off of Beth’s head and ran down his perch, while Beth walked down to the workbench across the room. She squeezed the metal arm out of her belly button onto the table.

“It looks so old, Beth,” Shermy said. “Whose do you think it is? Or, was?”

“There’s no markings on it or anything… I think we should find the King of Ooo and ask him.”

“What?!” exclaimed Shermy. He had heard legends about the King of Ooo- everybody had. It was one of the hallmark stories people told all around the land of Ooo. He was super duper old, and infinitely wise, as the stories went. But as far as Shermy was concerned, that’s all they were- stories. “Beth, the King of Ooo is just a myth! Come on, Beth!”

“That’s what I thought too, but I was doing some research at the library-“

“NOOOO! Not the library! You can’t make me!” Shermy screeched.

“Shermy. I have the book here. I already checked it out.” Beth pulled the holobook out from under the workbench. It was titled “Royalty of Ooo”. Shermy’s ears perked up. “Oh,” he muttered, jumping down onto Beth’s head as she opened the book.

“He’s supposed to have lived in a cave at the top of Mount Cragdor.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm. He’s supposed to have lived… _forever_.”

 

“Come on, Beth! Come on come on come on!” Shermy yelled, jumping into one of Beth’s portals. The two were ascending the side of Mount Cragdor- Beth by walking, and Shermy by Beth’s portals. At last, Shermy popped up out of a portal upon the snowy summit of the mountain, Beth catching up not a moment later. Shermy turned around and gasped.

“I did it,” he declared. “I found him. The King of Ooo!”

There, on the snowy summit of Mount Cragdor, was a fancy cabin built into the very rock itself. The door to the cabin was open, and in the doorway stood a small blue robot with a crown on his head and a white rag tied around his face like a beard.

“Welcome, friends! I’ve been expecting you. Because of my proximity radar.” The robot giggled, showing off a little radar dish in his head.

“Come on inside,” the King of Ooo beckoned. Shermy and Beth followed him into the cabin, and Beth closed the door behind them.

 

“King of Ooo, you must be rich!” Shermy exclaimed. The King’s cabin was filled with all sorts of ancient treasures- an old drum set, a license plate, and all sorts of strange weapons and golden loot, among many other things.

“Yeah, that’s me alright,” said the King as he took a seat at a small table and poured a cup of tea. “I’m sure you are very thirst after your journ-“ the King was cut off by a loud crash as Shermy knocked something over.

“Whoops!”

Shermy had already put on an old shirt and a pair of glasses that the King had lying around. “This place is wild!” he exclaimed, looking up at the empty shell of an old robot labeled ‘AMO’. “This is crazy!”

“Please be careful w-“ the King was cut off again by a grating snap. “Sorry, sir!” yelled Beth. “My big feet!”

“Beth, look, I’m a princess!” There was another crash.

“Shermy!”

“I think it’s okay-“ another crash.

“Be careful,” Beth warned as she picked up an old skull, “this stuff isn’t ours- whoop!” The skull tumbled out of her hands, smashing on the ground. At that, the King of Ooo had enough. The door opened. “Well, goodbye!” the King said, his intentions clear.

“Oh, no, no! Um…”

“Have fun on the other side of this door.”

“But… we came here to ask about something,” Beth pleaded, retrieving the metal arm.

“No, don’t worry about it, please leave and-“ Beth cut him off by poking him with the rusted robot arm. The King paused as Beth set the item down on the ground, gaping at it in disbelief before sitting down and taking off his crown and beard.

“Do you recognize it?” asked Beth.

“Yeah! It belonged to my best friend… Fred!”

“Fred!” Shermy exclaimed in wonder. But the King wore a confused face.

“No, not Fred… his name was… Phil. He was an amazing hero, and he was there at the end. Do you know about the Great Gum War?”

Shermy shook his head and hummed no, curling into Beth’s lap to hear the King’s story.

“Well, get ready to have your hair blown back!”

 

The King of Ooo told them about Phil and Jake, and the Princess who was mother to her own uncle (which made him mad), and the vampire who was dating the Princess, and the grass Phil named Fern that fought against them, and the biggest fight that Ooo had ever seen. He told them how the war ended before it started, with a little smart thinking from the heroes. “And so, in the end, they decided not to have the big fight.”

“Oh,” said Beth. “So you meant, like, the end of the war. I thought you meant, like, the end of the world.”

“No, no, no,” the King insisted. “That happened next.”

The King told them about the big red baby named GOLB that came from space, and the even _bigger_ fight they had with GOLB’s monsters. He told them about the sad Ice King and his crazy wizard sort-of-girlfriend, and how GOLB ate them and Phil. How Fern changed sides to help the fight. How the Princess and her vampire girlfriend had kissed. How the monsters destroyed the King’s house, and how they used a song to save Phil and the others from the maw of GOLB. How the crazy wizard lady saved them all from evil, at the cost of her own life. How Fern had faded away, and was replanted as a sapling where their old house had been.

“That’s the end,” the King finished.

“I thought this story was about the end of Ooo,” Shermy said, confused. The King thought for a moment. “Pretty much,” he eventually decided.

“But what happened to Phil and Jake after that?”

“Or Princess Bubblegum?” Beth added.

“Eh, you know… they kept living their lives.” The King stood and moved to open the door. “Thank you for visiting the King of Ooo. Goodbye!”

 

Shermy and Beth exited the cabin and started down the snowy path. Near them, Sweet P the giant lumbered past the mountain. “The King was very polite for a king, don’t you think?” asked Beth as they walked.

“I wish we could find that little Fern tree. See if that story is true.”

“That tree would be a big tree by now! It’s like a thousand years old.”

“Oh. A big tree… hey! I know where that tree is! Come on, Beth!” Shermy grabbed Beth’s hand and took off down the mountain path. He knew exactly where to go- the Grasslands.

 

Shermy ran up to the foot of the Big Tree where they had had their picnic earlier, and pointed up excitedly. “This has to be it!” he exclaimed.

“It would make sense,” conceded Beth. “You wanna climb it?”

“You know it! Come on!” Shermy started scrambling up the side of the tree, looking up to where it faded into the clouds.

 

The climb took a very long time, but at long last Shermy and Beth pulled themselves up among the very highest branches at the top of the tree. Around them, the clouds parted to allow the Sun itself to shine upon them. There, at the center of the tree’s wooden crown, was a silver sword with a blue gemstone embedded in the branch. Shermy scrambled up the branch and approached the sword excitedly.

“Check it out, dude!”

“Very pretty.”

Shermy grabbed the handle of the blade and pulled, and with all his strength (and a little unnoticed help from Beth), he managed to yank the blade free of its ancient holding place. Shermy gasped as the weight of the weapon shifted into his hands, before smiling with glee with realization at what he was holding.

“Lift that sword, Shermy,” encouraged Beth. And so, Shermy hoisted the silver blade high above his head, where it glinted in the sunlight, and said:

“Aww, yeah!”


	11. De-Disembodiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After escaping from the dungeon with Shermy, Skull Guy sets out to find himself a new body.

Skull Guy hopped down the hill out of the Crag Fields. He tripped up and tumbled over, rolling the rest of the way down. At the bottom of the hill, he righted himself and took a deep breath.

“Ahh, smell that fresh air,” he said aloud. Then he started coughing. Ooo’s air was anything but ‘fresh’.

Skull Guy started hopping away from the rocky inclines behind him. It had been too long since he had seen the light of day. He didn’t know where he was going. Or care. As long as it was away from the lair-beast’s smelly old dungeon.

 

Eventually, after a whole day of hopping aimlessly, Skull Guy found himself wandering in a deep wood, knocking over rocks and tin cans as he went along. He found himself following an old stream, which led him to a mysterious-looking ruin half-buried in the ground. Only the top half of the door was above ground. The stream was pouring out of a hole in the side of the ruin.

“Hmm. Stay out here, or go back into a dark smelly dungeon?” he asked himself.

Skull guy hopped through the darkened entrance into the creepy ruin. Inside, the stone bricks were overgrown with green vines, plus the occasional alien-looking purple plant. The first chamber of the dungeon wasn’t completely buried- the dirt sloped down before stopping, giving way to cold stone. Skull guy rolled down the mound of sediment, hopping into the darkness.

 

The second chamber was flooded in water up to Skull Guy’s chin. There was old, fading graffiti all over the walls, and scattered gold coins around the floor. Skull guy collected them all and (with quite a bit of effort) managed to get them into his little bag. In the center of the chamber was a raised platform with a pedestal upon it. Skull Guy hopped up onto the platform. Upon the pedestal, there was a crystal eye that opened to look at him.

“Halt, traveler!” the crystal eye said. “In order to progress, you must answer this riddle. What is-“

“Open the door, you dingus.”

The eye scoffed. “Well, there’s no need to be so rude! Now I definitely _won’t_ open the door, unless you… make me laugh! Ha!”

Skull-guy groaned internally. “Um… skeleton jokes are really… humerus.”

“… I’m going to open the door for you out of pity. You sad, sad, skull man.”

A stone door across the chamber slowly creaked open. Skull Guy silently hopped over and entered the final chamber. The door closed behind him, trapping Skull Guy in darkness.

Suddenly, a colorful spotlight turned on, illuminating a jovial-looking old mustachioed man sitting behind a merchant stand.

“Congratulations!” the man boomed, gesturing wildly with his hands. “You’ve reached the end of the dungeon! As your prize for success, I shall craft for you a gift of your choice! What is it you most wish?”

Skull Guy thought for a moment. “Hows about a new body, mustache fella?”

“It shall be done!” cheered the dungeon merchant. He disappeared behind his stand, and (with a fit of hammering and sawing sounds that felt really out of place) produced a futuristic, shiny robot body with neon highlights. “Try that on for size!” said the dungeon merchant. Skull Guy hopped up and attached himself to the robot’s neck.

After a short minute of testing out the robot’s joints, Skull Guy jumped back out. “No, this body doesn’t feel right.”

“I’ll take another crack at it!” said the dungeon merchant, taking the robot body back behind his stand before (after another construction sounds fit) producing a cool new clockwork-steampunk body. “How about this?”

After another test, run, Skull Guy decided that “yeah- no, I’m not really feeling this one either.”

The dungeon merchant grumbled to himself. “Alright, hand it over. I’ll work something out.”

 

By the end of the day, there was a huge pile of discarded robot bodies in the corner. Skull Guy was trying out a fancy new body made out of rubber ducks.

“Well, the joints on this one are a bit too stiff, and it keeps squeaking.”

The dungeon merchant dragged his hands down his face. “Argh, you know what?! I’m done.” He angrily pulled down a headless skeleton that was chained to the wall behind him and tossed it to Skull Guy. “There’s your new body. I swear, if this is what I get for trying to be altruistic…” he grumbled to himself.

Skull Guy hopped up and attached himself to the new skeleton, trying out the dusty old limbs. “Hey, you know what, this is pretty good! Thanks, mustache fella!” Skull Guy (or rather, Skeleton Guy) walked out of the dungeon happily.

The dungeon merchant watched in disbelief as Skeleton Guy disappeared, before taking out an axe and angrily hacking his merchant stand to pieces. “I quit!” he yelled.

 

Skeleton Guy emerged from the dungeon and entered the dim, gray sunlight of Ooo! He took a hesitant, brave step into the world, and… tripped over a rock and faceplanted.


	12. Training Time!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy tries to learn how to fight with the new Phil Sword.

Shermy raised the Phil Sword above his head heroically. “Bring it, you dillweed! I have the sword of the great hero, Phi- woah woah woah!” Shermy tipped over to the side as the sword weighed him down, throwing off his balance and causing him to fall over.

Beth emerged from behind the training dummy Shermy had been talking to. “You alright, Sherm?”

“Yeah, I just- this sword is too flipping heavy!” Clearly, it had not been designed to be held by a tiny cat.

“I’m sure it just takes some getting used to. You wanna try again?”

Beth’s question was already answered, as Shermy had righted himself and was holding the sword up again (with both hands this time). “I’m gonna skip the speech this time,” he said. Shermy charged towards the training dummy, wobbling back and forth as the sword tilted in various directions. With a yell, he raised the sword to swing at the dummy, but it pulled him backwards and he landed on his back.

“Alright… timeout,” he wheezed. “It’s… so… heavy!”

Beth stepped out from behind the training dummy again and lifted the Phil Sword from Shermy’s paws. “Let’s have some grape juice,” she said. They’d been making a lot of grape juice lately.

 

Shermy sipped from his paper cup, nestled up on his perch. “That Phil guy must’ve been really strong, huh?”

“I guess so, Sherm.”

Shermy finished off his juice and set the cup down. “I’m gonna head out. And I’m gonna take the sword with me! Get some more training in.” Shermy jumped down from the perch and grabbed the sword, dragging it across the floor towards the door.

 

Shermy dragged the Phil Sword behind him as he wandered around the grasslands. He had seen some interesting things- a frog riding a turtle, for example- but no real training opportunities.

Maybe he could _make_ some training opportunities.

Shermy approached a dusty rock with little patches of gross moss on it. What if… the rock was hollow, and it was trapping a group of innocent old ladies? That wouldn’t really make sense, considering the rock was too small to contain old ladies. So… old lady mice. Shermy had a mission!

“Evil rock!” Shermy exclaimed, struggling to point the sword at it. “Prepare to die!!” He started spinning, using the sword’s weight to give him momentum, before letting go. The sword flew through the air and lodged itself in the rock.

“Hah! Take that!” Shermy yelled. He scrambled over to the rock and yanked at the sword’s handle.

It didn’t budge.

He started pulling it harder. The sword was really stuck- even more stuck than it was in the tree! Not even Beth could get it out, probably. Shermy climbed up the rock to the sword and started jumping up and down on the handle like a diving board. Finally, the sword budged, and the rock suddenly crumbled into a pile of dust and pebbles. Shermy fell to the ground and picked the sword back up.

“Haha! I’ve done it!” he exclaimed.

Shermy took a closer look at the crumbled rock. Indeed, there were no old lady mice- but there was a little lizard skeleton that had been fossilized inside. The bones pulled themselves together, and the skeleton said “Thanks!” in a quiet voice before skittering off.

Well, that had been fun, but it wasn’t so much swordfight training as much as it was Shermy just jumping on his sword. Shermy started dragging the sword behind him again, in search of an actual fight.

 

Shermy eventually found himself approaching a scarecrow sitting out in a field, all alone. A target! Shermy began crafting a reason to fight the scarecrow- maybe it had… scared an innocent crow, and… eaten its children? That would be downright villainous! Shermy charged at the scarecrow as best he could with the Phil Sword weighing him down. He swung the sword, chopping off the scarecrow’s… hat. Welp.

From nowhere, an angry farmer made of rotting fruits and vegetables (?!?) emerged. “What in the name of Glob are ye doing?” the farmer bellowed, angrily waving his cucumber arms.

“Woah, sorry! I just- I didn’t- I thought- I’m just gonna leave.” Shermy began scrambling away, sword trailing behind him.

 

Shermy’s training adventure wasn’t going very well. Now, he was wandering aimlessly around the grasslands dejectedly. It was so quiet- there was nothing to be heard except the wind, the crunch of dry grass, and evil cackling.

Wait a minute.

Shermy looked up to see the Ice Thing swoop down past the Big Tree towards him. The cackling thing started firing ice bolts at him! Shermy dropped the sword and quickly dodged, watching the ice bolts shatter against the dirt ground and melt. Shermy scrambled to get the sword back as the Ice Thing soared overhead. He picked up the blade and tried to lift it with two hands, managing to point it at the Ice Thing.

“I’ve got this ancient sword now, Ice jerk!!! You don’t stand a chance against me now!” Shermy planted his cat paws and stood his ground as the Ice Thing dived down towards him, and as it fired another ice bolt directly at him he war-meowed and swung the sword.

There was a bright flash of light, and Shermy couldn’t see anything. He felt the Phil Sword leave his hand.

When the light faded, Shermy saw the Ice Thing flying back towards the Ice Thingdom in defeat. The Phil Sword was hovering in the air, above a melting pile of ice. It slowly lowered down to the ground and placed itself in Shermy’s hand. It was smaller now, and weighed less- he could hold it up with ease.

“You… you fought it?”

The blue gemstone in the hilt glowed slightly and chirped. Somehow, Shermy understand what it was trying to say.

“I had to prove myself in order for you to fight for me… cool!”

Shermy started to walk home with the sword, but stopped when he saw that frog riding a turtle again.

 

It was dark by the time Shermy made it back to the cave. Beth was sitting by the pond, fishing.

“Hey, Beth! The sword is even cooler than I thought it was! It’s alive!”

Beth took the sword from his hands and inspected it. “It’s smaller now. Pretty weird,” she observed.

“Yeah! It even fought off the Ice Thing! I’m gonna go celebrate with some cookies shaped like my face.” Shermy headed into the cave and went into the house. Beth stood up and headed after him. After she entered the cave, she looked back outside. In the distance, past those big statues, she could see the spotlights of Pup Kingdom ships scanning the landscape. Beth frowned.


	13. The Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy begrudgingly agrees to go with Beth to the Library of Ooo.

“NOOOO! You can’t make me!!” Shermy yelled.

Beth laughed. “Shermy, come on. Don’t be so silly, libraries aren’t actually that bad.”

“They’re EVIL.”

“What, did a library knock over your ice cream when you were younger?”

Shermy grumbled something about ‘evil books’ and ‘reading shortens your lifespan’.

“Shermy, the Library of Ooo is really cool. Think of it as like… a really quiet dungeon with more books. You don’t even have to read anything, I’m sure you’ll figure out something to do. And Library Princess is really nice.”

Shermy let out a long, melodramatic sigh. “You win this one, Beth. I’ll go with you to the library.”

“Yeah! Hey, Sherm, you know what time it is?”

“… Adventure Time?”

“Reading Time.”

Shermy gave himself a heart-punch and fell backwards onto the floor.

 

The moment they were through the big wooden doors, Shermy was unhappy. Everywhere he looked, there were books. There were books to his left, books to his right. There were books above him (how does that even make sense?!). Beth, on the other hand, looked absolutely ecstatic. If a place could make his best friend this happy, then surely it wasn’t so bad, right?

Yeah, no, it was that bad.

Shermy had to restrain himself from crying out in pain (emotional pain!) and instead climbed up Beth’s arm. The two headed down the staircase past Library Princess’s desk (she waved at them as they went by) down to the main lobby.

“I’m gonna go browse,” Beth whispered. “Don’t, I dunno, break anything.”

Shermy gave her a reluctant thumbs up and climbed into a comfy seat, and Beth walked off into one of the endless rows of bookshelves.

 

Beth wandered down the aisle and looked at the covers of books. They all had very interesting titles; “Dealings with Sentient Pineapples”, “The Tale of the Waxman of Ooo”, and “Moby Stick: Tale of the Great White Branch”. One book, however, caught her attention more than the rest, because it was sticking out of the shelf slightly. Beth pulled the book out of the shelf and sat down with it in the middle of the aisle.

 

Shermy stared at a reading lamp on the table in front of him with almost murderous intent. He was.

So.

BORED.

Shermy took a quick look around. Surely, there was something interesting to do here, right? There were still books everywhere… in bookshelves! He could climb the bookshelves, like some kind of epic mountain! Shermy tumbled out of his (admittedly comfy) seat and scrambled, as quietly as possible, down a nearby aisle.

The bookshelf towered above him frighteningly. It was very tall (too tall, one might say, if they were, I dunno, a small cat). Shermy grabbed hold of the first shelf, forcing himself not to hiss in anger at the feeling of a book touching his paw. He pulled himself up and reached for the next shelf. In a short minute, Shermy was quietly scrambling up the shelf towards the summit!

 

Beth turned to the last page of the book. It was an alright read. As she went to put the book back, a little note slipped out and drifted to the floor. Curious, Beth picked up the note. It read:

‘find the orangutan party’

A riddle! This one was pretty easy: there was an orangutan party in chapter nine of “Chimpness: a Novel”. That had to be it, so Beth set off to find the Library’s copy.

 

Shermy held on tight to the shelf. He was really high up now- it was colder, and the faint sound of wind passed through his ears. Where was that coming from? Shermy chanced a look back down below him, and saw distantly the lobby where he and Beth had started. It looked so small… how freakin’ tall was this bookshelf? Shermy looked back up, and the summit was closer, but not exactly close.

Shermy let out a strained breath and realized how tired his cat arms were getting. He looked around quickly and saw nearby a ladder with a platform. How convenient! He started shuffling across the shelf he was currently on towards it.

There was a spot on the shelf where the ledge had crumbled, leaving the books hanging off slightly. Shermy would be unable to continue that way. He climbed down to the ledge under him and continued shimmying towards the ladder. Soon, he managed to grab the side of the ladder and pull it towards him, so that he could climb back up and onto the platform. Shermy sat on his back and sighed.

 

There was another note at the end of “Chimpness: A Novel”, which read:

‘the next clue is all about the bu-bumps’

This one was going to be a bit harder, thought Beth. She didn’t immediately know the answer, which meant she hadn’t read this book. Maybe Library Princess would know.

Beth returned the book to its shelf and carried the second note up the stairs to Library Princess’s desk by the front door.

“Hey, LP!” Beth whisper-yelled.

“Hey, Beth! What can I help you with?”

“I found this note. It’s a clue for… something. Any ideas?”

Library Princess took the little note from Beth and looked it over.

“Ah. I think I recognize this quote… it’s from a Jay T. Doggzone book. I forget which one. His books are always very… interesting.”

“Jay T. Doggzone… alright, thanks, LP!”

Library Princess gave Beth a friendly smile.                 

 

Shermy gulped as he looked back up the bookshelf. The ladder he was sitting on was extremely tall, and yet it didn’t come close to the ceiling of the library. He was so busy looking upwards, he didn’t even notice the ladder was slowly sliding to the left.

The ladder started accelerating. Shermy tried grabbing onto the bookshelf to slow down, but the ladder was already sliding too fast- he couldn’t get a proper hold.

The ladder hit the end of the track and stopped abruptly. Shermy was sent flying off of the ladder and plunged down past rows of books towards the distant ground. He landed on another, shorter ladder (on his feet, as always) with a thud that, although quiet, echoed far too loudly in the silent library.

Somewhere in the distance, somebody shushed loudly.

Shermy looked back up the bookshelf. He had fallen so far from where he was, and he didn’t really want to go back up all that way. So much for that adventure.

So what was he going to do now?

Shermy returned to the library lobby. There was nothing much around; some seats, desks, nonfunctional computers…

There was a staircase over by the entrance labeled ‘Archives’. That might be interesting… maybe there would be some sort of secret dungeon down there! Shermy headed down the staircase into the dark underbelly of the Library.

 

“Mind Games” by Jay T. Doggzone was… not a very good read. It was full of really, _really_ bad advice. Beth turned to the last page, and something tumbled out. It was a small CD with something scrawled on it in marker:

‘congrats you found my mixtape plz listen’

Beth frowned. Well, that wasn’t worth it. She stuffed the CD back into the book and put it back on the shelf. She got up and started heading back towards the lobby. Maybe it was time to go home.

 

Shermy crept through the Library’s basement. It was dark and spooky down here, and the dusty old brick walls really made the place feel more like a dungeon than a library. That was a good sign.

Shermy heard a sound echo somewhere in the distance. He leaned around the corner slowly, and saw something.

Two hooded figures appeared at the end of the hallway, one of them holding a lantern. Both seemed to have long swords sheathed on their belts. They started talking in dark whispers.

_“It’s not here.”_

_“She must have hidden it somewhere else… we must search elsewhere.”_

One of the hooded figures suddenly tensed up, as if realizing something. They turned to look down the hallway.

Under the hood, Shermy could see nothing in the darkness except two pinpricks of light.

He felt a sudden fear clutch at his heart, unlike anything he had ever felt before. Shermy gasped in fright and stumbled backwards, quickly scrambling back down the hallway he had come from. He dashed through the decaying maze that was the Library's basement, feeling relief when he saw light pouring down the staircase ahead of him. He bounded up the stairs into the well-lit, quiet lobby. As he did, Beth emerged from one of the aisles. Shermy waved her over.

“Beth!” Shermy whispered. “Can we go home? Please?!”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. You alright?”

“Um… yeah. Let’s just go home.”

Beth nodded and picked Shermy up. They headed up the stairs past Library Princess’s desk (she waved at them as they went by) and left the library.

 

As they walked home, Beth asked, “So, what did you do that whole time?”

“I… found things to do. Didn’t break anything, like you said!” Shermy beamed at her, making her giggle.

“I’m proud of you, Sherm,” she said sincerely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jay t. doggggggggggggggggggggggggg


	14. A Really Weird Thing!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hot Dog Kingdom is in a panic, as a really weird thing has appeared at the front gate!

Shermy and Beth had been planning to stay inside and relax all day. It seemed like a good day to just do nothing.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Shermy climbed down from his perch and opened the door only to be suddenly barraged by the panicked screaming of Jim the Hot Dog Knight. Whatever he was saying was completely unintelligible.

“Woah, woah, woah! Jim, get a grip, you sausage! Is the Hot Dog Kingdom under attack?”

“I- well, actually, not really. But this weird thing just showed up at the front gate! It’s been sitting there for hours, and everybody’s too scared to go near it.”

“What kind of ‘thing’?” Beth asked.

“Um… it’s best if you come see it yourself.”

 

It was easy to see why Jim insisted they come see it themselves, as the… thing was indisputably hard to describe. It was roundish and squishy-looking, with a sort of sickly green color and purple spots. Its surface was constantly fluctuating slightly, making it difficult to define.

Shermy, Beth, and Jim had come in through the back gate of the Kingdom, and passed several rows of frightened, shivering hot dog citizens. The other Hot Dog Knights were all crowded around the front gates, holding their spears forward in a phalanx formation. Hot Dog Princess stood at the back of the formation, watching. Right beyond the gate, the thing was sitting there, unmoving.

“There it is,” Jim whispered.

“I was expecting weird, but I wasn’t expecting, like… _that_ weird,” said Shermy.

Beth squeezed past the line of knights and slowly approached the strange object. As she came within a few feet of the thing, it began quivering vigorously and emitting a high-pitched beeping/squealing/screaming sound. The hot dog citizens immediately fell into a terrified panic!

“Yikes!” Beth exclaimed, stumbling backwards towards the knights. The object stopped screeching, and just like that the hot dog people calmed down again.

A stagnant silence fell upon the Kingdom.

“… I’m going to touch it,” Beth whispered.

“Uh, Beth, I don't think that's a good idea!" Shermy whisper-yelled; but it was too late. Beth started creeping forwards again towards the object. It starting screeching again, and the hot dog people started shrieking in terror again. Beth slowly reached towards the object with her hands and lightly touched it.

The object shrieked even louder!

The thing began flashing different colors, none of which were particularly pleasant to look at (in fact, it was just kinda gross). Beth slowly lifted the squishy thing up in her hands to look at it. It felt like a glob of thick syrup, fluctuating in her hands. She glanced over her shoulder at the others.

“Well… It hasn’t eaten me yet!” she yelled over the thing’s screeching.

Hot Dog Princess gave Shermy a look that said ‘is she completely insane?’ Shermy looked at her and shrugged.

After a moment of holding the shrieking object up, Beth noticed it was pulling in a certain direction. She turned in that direction, and the thing started shrieking even louder. Was it trying to tell her something?

"You're in trouble, aren't you, little guy?" she said quietly. "You just need some help."

Beth started walking where the object was telling her to go, and it started screeching _even louder_. The sound was borderline deafening. Beth reached down and grabbed a handful of dirt, and stuffed it into her ears as makeshift earplugs. She started running in the direction that the thing was indicating for her to go.

 

Eventually, Beth found herself approaching a small cave. Inside, there was deep pit, from which there came a bright glow and a familiar loud screeching sound. The object in her hands began full-on shaking, and then it suddenly flew out of her hands into the pit!

Beth stepped forward and looked into the pit, where the object had joined a much larger shape fluctuating and waving and shining with many different colors. The ear-splitting sound began to fade into a much more pleasant hum, and Beth could pull the dirt earplugs out of her ears.

The blob sitting in the pit warbled kindly at Beth. “You’re welcome!” she said cheerily. There was a bright flash of colorful light, and the blob in the pit suddenly surged upwards, knocking Beth out of the cave and high into the air. The shining shape disappeared into the sky, and Beth waved at it as she flew through the air like a rocket.

 

“Is that her?” Hot Dog Princess asked, looking up into the sky.

Beth landed with a crash right outside the gate of the Hot Dog Kingdom. She groaned and pulled herself to her feet, bruised and battered, but grinning.

“Nobody panic! The situation is resolved!” she exclaimed. “It just needed some help!"

Beth fell face-first onto the ground and started snoring.

All eyes fell on Shermy.

“Uh… I think she’ll be fine?” he remarked.

 

"I have eyes, sir. They've gone into the cave."

"Good work, son," said Gibbon. One of the Pup soldiers had spotted Beth rocketing through the air, and they had managed to keep an eye on her and her little friend as they headed home. "Post a spy by the cave entrance. We've got her."


	15. Finale: Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While exploring as normal, Shermy and Beth are confronted by the Pup Kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 1 is coming to a close! It hasn't been very long, I know, but I think this works pretty well.

A delicious smell wafted out of the little kitchenette, up the ladder, and into Beth’s bedroom where she was currently sleeping. She groaned, slowly waking up, and sniffed the air.

“Something smells good…” she muttered. Beth climbed out of bed and down the ladder, heading over to the kitchenette. Shermy was standing there, on top of a stool, cooking something in a pan and humming a little tune.

“Beth! You’re up! I made breakfast- bacon pancakes!”

“Bacon pancakes? Where’d you get the idea for that?

“I dunno,” Shermy said, as he climbed down from his stool and put the pancakes on a plate. “Just popped into my head. It feels like an old friend came up with the recipe, but I don’t know who. It’s weird.”

Beth grabbed a fork and took a bite. “Shermy… this is the most amazing thing I have ever eaten.”

Shermy grinned widely. “I hope so! I made it!”

A few minutes later, the bacon pancakes were gone. “So,” Beth started, “any plans for today?”

“I have no idea! But I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

“Sounds good.”

As the two headed out, neither of them noticed the small ladder perched by the cave entrance.

 

“Ok! Toss me!”

Beth picked Shermy up and tossed him into her belly button. He flew out the other side at high speed, hurtling out of a portal on the ground towards Prize Ball Guardian’s head at high speed. As Shermy approached the giant, Beth used the same maneuver to fire a large boulder at the Guardian, and grab on to it as it went past.

The Banana Guard fired laser blasts at the rocketing Shermy as he approached PBG’s slot. Shermy latched onto the metal contraption in the middle of its body, dodging laser blasts. He climbed up and started fiddling with the machine’s handle. Above him, Beth crashed into PBG’s glass head with a thud and yelled, “I’m okay!”

Prize Ball Guardian reached up to pluck Shermy and Beth off of its gargantuan torso and, with one flick of its wrists, hurled them off into the sky.

 

Over in the dump, Shermy landed in a giant pile of discarded mattresses. Beth crashed down nearby into a hill of old pillows.

“Man,” she remarked, “this place has really convenient litter.”

Shermy jumped on one of the mattresses and rode it like a surfboard down the trash pile. Beth followed suit, choosing to instead walk down the soft and fluffy slope to the ground, where Shermy was already digging around in a pile of garbage.

“Oooh!” Shermy exclaimed. He pulled something out of one of the trash piles- it was an old princess crown! He placed the crown on his head and turned to Beth.

“Beth! Check it out! I’m a princess again!”

“You’re beautiful, Sherm,” she joked. “You could start your own kingdom!”

“Yeah! The, uh… Cat Kingdom? Something like that. Princess Shermy, the benevolent!”

 

Shermy and Beth wandered across the Grasslands, going south. Maybe they’d visit the Dragon Kingdom or something.

But something didn’t quite feel right. In fact, something felt really, really…

Wrong.

Beth decided to look over her shoulder, just in case. And there, approaching them, she saw spotlights. The Pup Kingdom had finally found her.

Beth snatched up Shermy and placed him on her head, ready to run from the approaching ships, but then another two ships appeared from nowhere to block them. They were completely surrounded!

The main ship floated down towards the two adventurers, and a white-haired pup with a crystal eye stepped down from the platform.

“Betony Burrito Jakson IV, where have you been?!”

Beth sighed. “Hey… granddad.”

“Don’t ‘granddad’ me, Beth!” Gibbon scolded. “First, you try to jump-start a rebellion, and then you run away from home! And now, what, you’ve kidnapped a cat?”

“I’ll have you know I’m here of my own free will!” Shermy exclaimed. “Beth, who is this guy?” he added in a whisper.

“Look, Beth, I’m going to cut right to the chase,” Gibbon said. “You are hereby under arrest for crimes against the Pup Kingdom. I don’t think I need to list them all out to you. Hardly behavior becoming the Pup Princess.”

Shermy had heard that name before. Where had he…

It clicked.

Shermy scrambled off of Beth’s head and stepped away from her.

“Beth, you… you’re the Pup Princess?”

Beth didn’t meet his eyes. She was staring intently at a patch of grass like it was her favorite book. Shermy looked back and forth between her and Gibbon, then turned on his heel and ran. He ducked under one of the ships and sprinted across the plains.

“Shermy, wait, I-“ it was too late. He didn’t hear.

“Should we go after him?” asked one of the Pup soldiers.

“No,” Gibbon muttered. “He’s not the one we’re after. We’ve got what we came for.”

 

Shermy didn’t know where to go. So he went towards the first thing he saw. The Big Tree. It towered over him as always, making him feel even more small and alone. Without thinking, Shermy scrambled up the roots and started the long climb to the top. He didn’t know what he was doing, or why. He just wanted to get away.

Who was Beth? Was she the friend Shermy had looked up to? Was she some villainous criminal? He didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

 

The crystal handcuffs around Beth’s wrists were really not uncomfortable. She hesitantly stepped onto the ship and stood next to Gibbon.

“Before we take you home, do you… have any final requests?” he asked.

“What?”

“I’m still your granddad, Beth. If there’s anything you want to get done before we arrest you…”

“I- I want to make sure Shermy’s okay. I don’t think he’ll do very well on his own.”

Gibbon nodded. He motioned for the other ships to follow him, and the group started heading off in the direction the little cat had run.

 

Shermy reached the summit of the tree above the clouds, the sun warming his face. He curled into one of the branches and sat in silence. Reaching up to scratch behind his ear, Shermy’s hand bumped up against metal. He had forgotten about the princess crown he had found in the dump, which still sat upon his head.

“Hey, little guy,” an unknown voice said behind him. Shermy jolted and turned his head to see a boy made of grass sitting on one of the higher branches. The boy’s shape was transparent, like some kind of ghost. “You alright?” he asked.

Shermy nodded mutely.

“You sure? You don’t look so good.”

“Well, I just… I found out that a friend was lying to me. I feel a little betrayed, you know?”

The grass boy nodded. “I’ve got plenty of experience with that. You mind if I tell you a story?”

Shermy shook his head. He shuffled around in his seat to face the ghost fully.

“I used to have a… let’s call him a brother. We were getting along pretty well, so I thought. But then I started getting some messed up thoughts. Like, real bad-guy stuff, you know? And I betrayed him. I thought it was what I wanted at the time, but… things ended up going bad. And I regretted it. I really did. I wanted nothing more than to take it all back. So just… I dunno, try to imagine what your friend is thinking right now.”

Shermy looked out at the clouds and thought. Beth was probably… she was probably sad, if she was the person he knew. She probably just wanted to see her friend again. And she wouldn’t be able to, if she got arrested.

Running away is no way to say goodbye to someone.

Shermy turned back to face the ghost again. “Dude, thanks for the-“

The ghost was gone. Weird.

Wait… a boy made of grass… on this tree…

Fern?

“Thanks for the math advice, dude,” Shermy said to the tree.

A cold chill fell upon the wind. Shermy shivered and curled in on himself. The temperature was dropping quickly. Maybe he should get down from here.

Shermy looked up when a familiar cackle came to his ears.

 

The Pup Kingdom ships approached the Big Tree slowly. Beth looked up to where the branches disappeared into the clouds. Flashes of light illuminated the highest reaches of the tree. What was going on up there?

Suddenly, the Ice Thing swooped down out of the clouds- and it had Shermy! The little cat was kicking with his claws at the cackling demon, to no avail.

“Shermy!” Beth yelled. The Pup soldiers raised their laser rifles and started firing at the beast.

Outnumbered, the Ice Thing flew off in the direction of the Ice Thingdom, and Shermy’s cries faded into the distance.

 

To be continued?!?!?!


	16. Finale: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy and a new ally struggle to escape the Ice Thingdom, while Beth allies with Gibbon to save her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 1 end!

The Ice Thing dropped Shermy from its grasp. With a scream, he fell into a tunnel carved into the side of a great mountain of ice. He tumbled against the frozen walls, slipping down the pipe before being dumped out in a little room (also made of ice). The crown on his head fell off and clattered against the ground.

The small chamber looked like a prison cell- the only light came in through a window with ice bars. Shermy scrambled up to the window and looked out to see ice, more ice, some snow, and some more ice. Lots of ice.

Shermy yelped when something gently grabbed him by the ears and lifted him of the ground. He was spun around and found himself facing a… pink lady?

“Huh… Felis catus. How’d a little fella like you end up here?”

“Hey, lady, watch the ears!”

“Right! Sorry.” With a cough, the pink lady gently set Shermy back down on the ground. “You talk, too. Guess that’s not too surprising.”

The lady stepped back and sat down in front of Shermy. She was huddled in a big pile of blankets, and her hair looked all stiff from the cold, like it was made of candy or something. She coughed again. The lady turned and picked up the princess crown that had fallen off of Shermy’s head.

“Heh. I used to have a crown like this,” she muttered, placing the crown on her head. She looked like a real princess, Shermy thought.

Wait… of course!

“You… you’re Princess Bubblegum, aren’t you?” he asked.

The lady paused. “You know about me?”

“Yeah! You were in this story the King of Ooo told us. About the Great Gum War.”

Princess Bubblegum frowned, like the name put a bad taste in her mouth. “The King of Ooo…? Oh, you mean BMO! Good to hear he’s still around. I hope he’s not lonely…” she trailed off.

“Um, anyways, Princess, how’d you end up here?”

“Oh, Ice Thing got me. He has a thing for kidnapping princesses. That’s probably why he got you, isn’t it? You were wearing the crown.”

Shermy walked back over to the window and took a closer look outside. The window seemed to be built into the side of an ice cliff, which fell downwards into a deep chasm. In the distance, mountains of ice rose from a low-hanging mist. Shermy tried to smash the bars on the window, but they were too tough.

“I’ve already tried that. They’re tougher than they look.”

Shermy jumped down from the window and opened his rucksack. “Maybe, but you didn’t have the stuff I do!” He took a quick inventory- there was a piece of a broken plate, some rope, and some snacks. “Let’s see what we can do.”

 

“The biggest problem will be finding the kid,” Gibbon stated. “The Ice Thingdom is… big. And it’s not very well mapped.” Gibbon pointed to the left side of the Thingdom on his map. “The Ice Thing flew in this direction. Squads 1 and 2, you deploy on this side-“ Gibbon moved his finger over to the other side of the map- “and give us a distraction. Make as much noise as you can. Beth and I will sneak in while Ice Thing is distracted and look for the cat. Understood?”

The Pup soldiers nodded and saluted. The Squad1 and 2 ships lifted off and departed in the direction of the eastern Ice Thingdom.

Gibbon turned to Beth and released her crystal handcuffs. "Betony, I'm releasing you from custody _temporarily_. You can see your friend again, assuming we find him, and then you'll be put away. Understand?"

Beth nodded her head.

"Good. Let's go." With that, the two boarded Gibbon's ship and headed off towards the Ice Thingdom.

 

Shermy finished tying the rope around the bars on the window and hopped down. Princess Bubblegum was holding the other end of the rope behind him. “Alright, pull!” he exclaimed. With a grunt, the Princess pulled the rope with all her might. Shermy ran up and grabbed the rope in his paws as well, straining against the bars.

Suddenly, a loud **bang** shook the tiny cell, knocking Shermy and the Princess to the ground.

“Woof, what was that?” Bubblegum muttered. Shermy ran up to the window and looked out to try and see what had happened.

 

On the other side of the Ice Thingdom, the Pup Kingdom ships continued firing upon a great shelf of ice, causing it to collapse into the mist.

 

“Let’s try again,” Bubblegum said. The two picked up the rope again and started to pull. The ice bars creaked slightly, but did not budge.

“Wait, I have an idea!” Shermy exclaimed. He opened his rucksack and pulled out a piece of the broken plate, before rushing back over to the window. With the sharp end of the ceramic shard, he began chipping away at the base of the ice bars while the Princess continued heaving. With great effort, the bars began to budge.

 

“I think I see someone down there,” Beth said, squinting in the snow. Gibbon followed her gaze to see that there was indeed a vague shadow across a chasm of ice. The Pup Kingdom ship floated down across the chasm as the snow cleared- it was a person, perched upon some sort of… large stone duck?

Hearing the approach of the Pup Kingdom ship, the person turned to face them, letting down their hood. Long black hair billowed out into the wind.

“It’s you!” Beth exclaimed.

“Hey again, kid. Where’s your cat friend?”

“He’s been captured by Ice Thing. We’re looking for him.”

“We don’t know where to start,” Gibbon added. “This place is too big.”

The lady pulled a map out of her pack. “Well, you’re in the right place. I’ve spent a long time mapping the Thingdom. I’m… looking for someone myself. And I’ve narrowed it down to this area.” The lady gestured to a spot on the map circled in red marker. “The Ice Thing’s prison is somewhere here. We find that, we’ll find your friend.”

 

There was a loud crack, and the ice bars gave way. Shermy whooped and scrambled up to the window. He leaned out the newly-opened space, looking down into the chasm. The wind whistled in his fur, the cold stinging his nose.

Behind him, Shermy heard a bout of coughing, followed by a soft thud. He jumped down from the window and whirled around to find that Bubblegum had collapsed.

“Princess! Are you alright?” Shermy scrambled over in concern. Bubblegum coughed again.

“I’ve been here for a long time. It’s easy to get sick around here.”

“I’ll check for a fever!” Shermy exclaimed, pressing his paw to her forehead. “Well, your head is really cold, so I guess it’s the opposite of a fever.”

“I’m… not sure that’s how that works.”

“Me neither!” Shermy attempted to pull his hand away from Bubblegum’s forehead- but it had become stuck! He had to really yank to get his hand free. Shermy went back to his sack and pulled out some of the cookies he had stashed in there. “Here, you should eat something,” he said, offering the snacks to the Princess. She accepted them happily and tore into them, muttering a quick thanks with her mouth full.

While Bubblegum snacked, Shermy went back to the opened window and leaned out. Although it was not a viable method of escape, considering the great chasm beneath it, having broken the bars allowed him to get a much better look around. The ice mountains in the distance were oddly shaped- they looked almost like spooky faces. A chill ran down his spine.

 

“My name is Marceline, by the way,” the lady said, pulling Beth out of her thoughts. Marceline was riding her duck(?) along a small path in the side of the cliff, while the Pup Kingdom ship floated alongside.

“Oh. Like, Marceline the Vampire Queen?”

Marceline raised an eyebrow. “You know me?”

“Yeah! I, um… heard a story about you once.”

“Woah-ho! I’m turning into a legend. Sweeet.”

“So, what are you doing out here anyways? You said you were looking for someone.”

“Yeah. Ice Thing got somebody important to me, too. Her name’s Bonnie. I’ve been looking for her for a long time… I’d give anything to see her again.” Marceline looked out wistfully at the snowy vista.

 

“Hey, Princess! I think I see something!” Shermy called out. Bubblegum shoved the rest of her cookie into her mouth and stumbled over to the open window. “Look there!” the cat shouted, pointing. Bubblegum followed his gaze to see some distant pink shapes moving across the landscape.

“I’ll bet my ears that’s the Pup Kingdom! They’re looking for us!” Shermy exclaimed excitedly. He leaned even further out the window, nearly falling out and forcing Bubblegum to hold him up by his collar.

“Hey!! We’re over here!!” he yelled, trying to get the ship’s attention. The echo of his voice bounced off of the shining ice and snow. The ship showed no change in course. “I don’t think they can hear us,” Bubblegum muttered. “We’re going to have to make some more noise.” She leaned further out the window and looked up above. There was an overhang of rock above them, with giant stalactites hanging down from it. “I think I have an idea,” she said with a grin.

Bonnibel marched back into the cell with newfound determination. She removed the princess crown from her head and picked up the rope they had found earlier, tying it around the crown with a tight knot. With her new contraption, she returned to the window and held the rope out like a lasso, swinging it in a wide circle before tossing it upwards towards the ledge. The metal crown fell short of the stalactites.

“Oh, I see!” Shermy realized. “Let’s bring the house down!!”

Bubblegum threw her makeshift lasso back up into the air, leaning even further out the window to try and get closer to the ledge. Once again, the crown fell short. “I don’t think it can reach,” she groaned. “There’s not enough rope. We were so close…”

Shermy pondered the situation for a moment, until an idea came to him. It was just crazy enough to work. “Princess, I have an idea!” he exclaimed. He grabbed onto the princess crown and braced himself against it. “Throw it again!”

“What?! That’s completely insane!”

“Exactly!”

Well, she couldn’t argue with that logic. Bubblegum lowered the rope (with Shermy holding on to the end) out the window, and started swinging the rope. Shermy held on tightly, watching the world spin faster and faster, starting to get dizzy. Suddenly, the rope shot upwards towards the overhang. Shermy whooped loudly as he sailed upwards, and raised his fist. In the brief moment that the crown slowed to a stop in its ascent, Shermy _punched the stalactite_.

A crack shot up the stalactite, and the ledge above it began to tremble. Shermy and the crown fell back down towards the window, and Bubblegum reached out to catch him in midair. She hauled the cat back into the cell just in time, as the overhang above them collapsed, sending a rumbling mass of snow, ice, and rock crashing down into the chasm below. The tiny cell shook, and a loud sound echoed about the ice canyon.

 

“Did you hear that?” Gibbon asked, raising his hand. Marceline turned her head to listen, her pointed ears twitching. Beth looked out and saw, in the distance, a rising cloud of snow dust, as if there had been an avalanche.

“Let’s go!” Marceline exclaimed, jumping off her duck and taking flight in the direction of the sound. Beth and Gibbon shared a look, before quickly going off after her.

 

Shermy spied the pink shapes in the distance change direction and begin approaching. “Princess! It worked!” He cheered, turning back to the cell- but the grin quickly vanished from his face. Bubblegum had doubled over coughing, and she quickly collapsed to her knees. Shermy scrambled over to check on her- she looked pale, and she was shivering.

“Hold on just a little longer!” Shermy begged. “We’re getting out of here soon.”

 

Marceline quickly scanned the landscape. This place didn’t look familiar- that was a good sign. There could be something new here. She was desperate- she hoped beyond hope that there was something here, that there was _anything_ here. The wind howled in her ears as behind her, the Pup Kingdom ship tried to catch up.

There, in the side of the ice mountain, was a little rectangular hole, like a window. That was it. Marceline zoomed down to the window with all the force of a Catalyst Comet and smashed through the ice, landing in a pile in the middle of the room. The Pup Kingdom ship pulled up to the large hole left in the wall from the sheer force of the impact.

Marceline looked up to see the small cat run past her and leap up excitedly into Beth’s arms. But there was someone else in the little cell- someone pretty and pink.

Bonnie was sitting down, looking worse for wear- but when her eyes met Marceline’s, she put on a weak but shining smile.

“Bonnie?” Marceline scrambled over faster than conceivably possible to pull her into a tight hug. She felt so cold, and she was shaking like a leaf.

Marcy pulled back when Bonnie broke down into a rough coughing fit. “Bonnie? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Bonnibel just smiled at her. She stared into Marcy’s face for a moment before whispering, “I knew you’d find me.” And then she passed out and collapsed into Marceline’s arms.

“Bonnie? Bonnie?!” Marceline panicked. She picked Bonnibel up in her arms and turned to the others. “We need to get her out of here. Can I use your ship?”

“Can’t you fly?” Beth asked.

“I don’t want to risk carrying her like this.”

“We can get her to our house!” Shermy suggested.

“Climb onboard,” Gibbon called out from his ship. Marceline carried Bonnibel up onto the ship and laid her down on it. Shermy jumped up on Beth's head and the two boarded the ship as well. The crystal vessel took off, leaving the ice prison behind and heading towards the green fields of Ooo.

As the Ice Thingdom whizzed past them, Marceline watched over Bonnie worriedly. “Please be okay,” she whispered.


	17. Back Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marceline comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1000+ is back! It feels great to be back writing this thing for season 2- I hope you stay tuned!

100 Years Ago (more or less)

Bonnie closed the electrical panel and stepped back as the Prize Ball Guardian whirred to life. The giant robot slowly sat up, careful not to shift the tiny spheres packed into its head- each containing a precious Candy Citizen. Bonnibel stared wistfully at the little prize balls- each one, she knew, had its own numerical designation. Each one corresponded to one of her beloved people, the internal environment tailored to their specific needs; she had memorized which candy person was in which ball, of course she did, she had drawn up the specifications herself-

“Good morning, mom,” the Prize Ball Guardian droned in a flat, robotic voice, cutting into Bonnie’s thoughts.

“Good morning, Prize Ball Guardian. How do you feel?”

“I feel that I am working properly. I am ready to fulfill my mission, mom.”

Bonnie nodded with a smile. “I agree. Marceline!” she yelled. “Open the doors!”

On the other side of the workshop, Marcy yelled something in affirmation. With a metallic groan, the massive metal doors of the workshop began to open, letting a ray of blinding red light cut through the space like a blade. Prize Ball Guardian looked into the light, and stood up to its full height.

“You know what you have to do,” Bonnie said, just loud enough for the robot to hear. “Keep my people safe.”

“Okay, mom,” the mechanical guardian droned, as it moved in large but graceful strides towards the door. Bonnie followed her creation all the way to the great gate, where Marceline stood waiting. The Prize Ball Guardian passed them and exited the workshop under Bonnie’s castle, stepping out into the empty Candy Kingdom. Bonnie watched the titan walk down the streets of her sprawling, abandoned metropolis, carrying with it the future of her people. The Candy Kingdom had gotten so big… when had it gotten so big? It used to be so manageable, but things had gotten a little out of hand. Maybe, in that way, the Prize Ball Guardian was a return to form- all her people together, close-knit… safe.

The light touch of a cold hand against her own pulled Bonnie back out of her thoughts. Marceline gave her a small, reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay, Bonnie. They’ll be okay.”

Bonnie let out a short laugh. “I know they’ll be okay. I designed PBG to withstand practically anything. But I can’t help but worry about them. They’re my peeps, you know? I love them.”

Marcy’s hand slipped into Bonnie’s. “Well, your peeps ought to be fine in there for another few centuries. Once this whole ‘end-of-the-world thing blows over, maybe we can take a little time for ourselves, you know?” Marceline gave Bonnie a small impish smile. Bonnie rolled her eyes light-heartedly.

“That sounds nice.”

Marcy and Bonnie looked up into the sky. The Candy Kingdom- the whole land of Ooo, really- was cast in a pleasant red light. It seemed that this time around, the Catalyst Comet had settled for a warmer color. Marceline certainly seemed happy about that. Honestly, this whole end-of-the-world deal felt like it was going alright.

Yeah, Bonnie could certainly settle for a century-long vacation.

 

100 Years Later (more or less)

The Pup Kingdom ship whizzed across the stale green landscape of Ooo. Marceline almost wanted to marvel at seeing green again after years of ice, but now wasn’t the time. The grass would still be there later. Right now, the only color she wanted to think about was pink.

Bonnie was cradled lightly in Marceline’s arms. Next to them, Shermy and Beth were guiding Gibbon to the location of the cave house. Marcy hoped they had blankets there, because Bonnie was so, _so_ cold, and Marcy did _not_ like the feeling of having the warmer hand.

“There’s the statues!” Shermy called out. “We’re getting close! It should be right around this corner.”

Sure enough, the Pup Kingdom ship rounded the edge of the Crag Fields and came upon a little opening in the cliff, from which water flowed into a small pond. Shermy backflipped off of the ship, while Beth and Gibbon climbed down like normal people. Marceline picked Bonnie up in her arms and gently floated down to the ground.

The cave was silent save for Shermy’s excited splashing through the water. Marceline’s old house stood out from the darkness, lined with the Christmas lights she kept in her closet. The twinkling lights gave the house a soft, welcoming glow. Marcy couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight of her old home. The two weirdos had done a good job taking care of the place.

Shermy was the first to the door- the little cat jumped up and opened the door, quickly scrambling inside and bounding over to the kitchen. Marceline paused at the doorway, and took a quick look around. It felt totally different than when she lived here- in a good way. Bonnie’s grape plant seemed to be doing well, and it had been reworked into a little platform around the room.

Marceline floated up the ladder to her bedroom with Bonnie in her arms. Fortunately, her bed was right where she’d left it, blankets and all. She lay Bonnie down gently and tucked her in, lightly pressing a hand to her cheek. It was still too cold, but Bonnie was breathing. She’d be alright.

As she moved to go back downstairs, something leaning against the wall caught her eye. It was her old banjolele, the only instrument she had left behind here. The rest of them she had placed in the care of BMO. Marcy grabbed the banjolele and floated down the ladder.

 

Before Beth walked into the little cave house, Gibbon placed a hand on her shoulder. “A word?” he said quietly. Beth nodded and stepped away from the door. Gibbon was looking out at the cave entrance.

“Beth, you have shown… impressive dedication and courage here today. Few have the guts to venture into a place like the Ice Thingdom.”

“You know… I had to. For Shermy.”

Gibbon nodded slowly. “I… hereby pardon you of all crimes against the Pup Kingdom. But do not get me wrong- you are still exiled. I don’t want to see you in my kingdom again, understood? Don’t make me regret this.”

Beth nodded. “Of course.”

Gibbon gave her a glance, before crossing the cave and going out the entrance. He climbed up onto his ship and departed without another word. Beth watched him disappear, before heading into the house after the others.

 

Marceline floated down into the living room just as Beth came in. Shermy was in the kitchen pouring water into a kettle. “I’m making some hot chocolate,” he said with a smile.

“How’s the Princess?” asked Beth.

“I… well, she’s still breathing, so that’s something,” Marceline said quietly. “Thank you both for your help. I mean it.” She floated over to the seat and sat down.

Shermy emerged from the kitchen with three steaming mugs of hot chocolate. He handed one to Beth and Marceline each, before climbing up to his perch with his own mug. Beth sat down on the floor across from Marcy.

“So, Marceline,” Shermy started. “You’ve been around for a really long time, right? Got any cool stories to tell?”

Marceline felt a smile creep onto her face. She strummed a few chords on her banjolele. “Yeah, I think I’ve got a few.”

Shermy and Beth leaned forward in rapt attention.


	18. The Red Flower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shermy, Beth, and Marceline search for an elusive red flower.

Beth dropped a dusty old book down on the workbench. The title read ‘Various Remedies for Various Afflictions, Vol. 2’. Beth, Shermy, and Marceline crowded around the well-used tome.

“I’m usually strictly against reading,” Shermy said, “but under the circumstances I’m willing to make an exception.” Shermy placed his paw on the cover and opened it. “What are we looking for?”

“Uh, look for, um…” Marceline snapped a few times – “hypo- hypothermia? That sounds about right.”

Shermy started flipping through the pages. Looking over his shoulder, Beth read off the words she saw: “Let’s see… snot nose fever, snail cramps, flame sneezes, sword arm twitches… here it is!” Shermy stopped flipping on a page with the word ‘Hypothermia’ written across the top. There was an image of a red flower on the parchment.

“Let’s see here. ‘In the old world, there were many remedies for this chilly affliction that are now lost to time, but there is still one left in Ooo. To warm up a too-cool bod, find this plant in the outskirts of the Fire Kingdom and make it into tea. For extra flavor, you may add ginger or-“

“Alright! We have a quest!” Shermy cut in. “To the Fire Kingdom!”

 

Blackened ash and smoke filled the sky, and a red glow lay on the horizon. This was only the furthest edge of the Fire Kingdom- further on, where the heartland of the Kingdom lay, the heat became so unbearable that no outside creature could survive. Even all the way out here, the ground was too hot to walk on barefoot.

“Look, Shermy, come on. You’re going to thank me for this later.”

“Beth, I’m _fine_! I am a warrior hero! I don’t need no fancy shoes!”

Beth sighed. “Alright, fine. I can see your feet are strong enough to take it.” Beth peeled the little cat off of her shoulder and dropped him onto the hot ground.

Shermy gave a confident grin. “See! I’m just fine. Like I said, _warrior he_ -“ Shermy’s words died in his mouth and his grin flipped as the pads of his feet started to smoke. With a resounding cat yelp, the little cat leapt up high into the air, falling back down onto Beth’s shoulders and blowing on his burnt feet.

“On second thought, I’ll take the boots,” he muttered with a sheepish grin.

Beth rolled her eyes as Shermy plucked the insulated boots from her hand and slipped them onto his feet.

Above them, Marceline floated by, wearing a pair of sandals and an old Hawaiian shirt. “Woof, it is warm out here,” she said, as she closed her parasol. “Man, it’s been so long since I’ve gotten to wear shorts. You would not believe how heavy those big coats get.” The vampire opened her bag and pulled out the book of remedies. “Okey-dokey, I don’t think a little flower should be too hard to find.”

The trio of adventurers looked around them at the flaming landscape around them. The rock was a deep red, there were red fires everywhere, and here and there was a pool of orange lava.

“Hmm. So, maybe not,” Marceline said. “But we’ll find it. Let’s split up!”

 

Doodly doo

It’s the looking for a flower song

Come up with the tune yourself

Cause we’d do it wrong

Here we’ve got Shermy

He’s lookin under a rock

Is the flower under there?

Nah, just some dumb sock

Let’s check up on Beth

Has she had any luck

Not with the flower, but

She’s found a cool fire duck

Over there’s Marceline

The Vampire Queen

Maybe she’ll find the flower

In our friends’ darkest hour (imagine this is a really high note)

That’s the end of this song

What rhymes with sugar?

We’re sorry if it sucked

We ain’t no Rebecca Sugar

 

Shermy hopped down into a small crevice in the heated rock, and followed it down to the foot of a great rock. Beneath the earth, the crevice led to a little opening in the rock that led downwards into a cave. Shermy drew the Phil Sword and moved inside.

The cave was almost unbearably warm. Steam drifted from small cracks in the ground; Shermy looked down one of the fissures and saw within a warm glow, deep beneath the earth. He followed the cave deeper and deeper into the dark rock. Eventually, the tunnel opened up into a small hollow, dimly lit by glowing red gems in the walls. In the center of the cave, in a small patch of dirt, there grew a small red flower.

“Aha! I have done it! I found the flower!” Shermy reached out to pluck the flower from the ground- and it suddenly vanished into the dirt.

“… What the stuff?”

The hollow began to rumble, and Shermy tightened his grip on the Phil Sword.

 

Beth leaned over and looked under a ledge. No flower. This thing was turning out to be pretty hard to find.

The distant sound of a clanging sword caught Beth’s attention. She clambered over to the source of the sound, and saw Marceline approaching as well. The noise was coming from somewhere under the ground- metal hitting something, followed by a loud cat yowl. The ground began to rumble. Marceline drew her laser gun.

The scorched earth exploded up from beneath them. The first thing Beth saw was Shermy flying up into the air, sword raised and a grin on his face. After him emerged some sort of giant worm, made of igneous rock. Its mouth was lined with hyper-sharp teeth of doom, it had three glowing red eyes of doom, and around its neck, arranged like some sort of frill, were large flower petals- also of doom. A tiny lure dangled from the worm’s forehead, in the shape of a red flower.

Shermy grabbed onto the worm’s lure and started clanging the sword recklessly at the monster’s stone head. The worm roared and opened its mouth, and a surge of lava erupted forth.

“Woah!” yelled Marceline, flying out of the way. Beth scrambled away from the molten rock and started hurling warm pebbles at the worm.

With a flick of its head, the worm hurled Shermy off of its head. He landed on his feet and charged back into the fray. “Go for the eyes!” Marceline called out after him. Shermy lunged for the glowing red eyes with the sword, and swung- but the worm moved too fast! He swung again and again- the worm dodged up and down, and snapped at him with its jaws. “It’s too quick!” he exclaimed.

Beth started digging around frantically in her belly button. “Oh, where is it, I know I put in in here somewhere… aha!” She victoriously pulled out a length of rope and started fiddling around with it. “Let’s see, I know I read about knots at some point… you tie this bit, and then… well, this bit goes under here, or- does it go around this bit? No… this knot goes around here, and then it… yes!” Beth held up her finished knot- a lasso.

“Marceline! Catch!” she yelled, tossing the rope into the air. Marceline lowered her laser gun and reached out to snatch the lasso out of the air. She raised the rope above her head and aimed; the worm was rapidly circling around Shermy, who was holding his sword out and spinning in circles. Marceline began spinning the lasso, closed one eye, and threw.

The lasso fell around the worm’s neck. Marceline pulled, tightening the loop. “Yeah! I oughta be a cowboy!” she whooped. With the lasso in place, the worm’s quick movements were halted. Shermy seized the chance, and leapt forward to jab the worm right in its middle eye.

With an ear-shattering screech, the worm reared back, and a flood of lava tears poured from its eyes. The worm turned and shuffled away with such speed that the rope was yanked from Marceline’s hands.

“Haha! Take that, you whiny son of a blee blob!” Shermy yelled out after it.

Amidst the sounds of Shermy’s celebration, something caught Beth’s eye. She walked up to the upturned rock left in the path of the worm’s hasty departure. There was a small patch of soil that had been exposed from under the rock, and in that patch of dirt grew a small red flower. Beth poked the little plant tentatively to make sure it wouldn’t try to eat her. Then, she gently lifted the dirt patch out of the ground. Turning around to face her friends, she displayed the flower. “Look what I found,” she said with a smile.

Marceline gasped and flew up to her. She held her hands up to the flower, as if she wanted to hold it but was afraid the slightest touch might damage it. She looked up to meet Beth’s eyes, and a matching smile started to form on her face.

“We did it. We did it!” she beamed, her smile turning into a grin. Marceline spun around to where Shermy was still doing some strange victory dance. “Shermy! We did it!”

“We did?” he said, before spotting the flower in Beth’s hands. “We did! Haha!” he yelled, throwing his arms up in the air and continuing his victory dance.

 

Shermy, Beth, and Marceline intently watched the water bubble as it boiled, the red flower sitting at the bottom of the kettle. The water started to take on a red color.

“And now we add the ginger, and a few drops of lemon juice,” Shermy said quietly, adding the said ingredients in perfect amounts.

“Shermy, how can you do this kind of thing so well if you don’t read cookbooks?” Beth asked. Shermy turned to her with a light in his eyes.

“Do you see… this?” he asked, enthusiastically gesturing to his nose. “My sniffer. I have the acute senses of a cat. I can detect ingredients in perfect proportions, I can smell exactly when food is properly cooked, and,” he said, turning back to the kettle, “I can smell when the tea is ready.” He poured the tea into a cup and handed it to Marceline.

The three went up the ladder to the bedroom, where Bonnie was still out cold. The room was quiet as Marcy gently poured the fresh tea into her mouth, then placed a hand to her forehead. They waited for a tense moment.

“She’s starting to warm up,” Marceline said suddenly. “It’s working.”

“Is she going to wake up?” Shermy asked.

“She should soon, if that book is anything to go by,” Beth added. “She’s out of the woods now.”

They all breathed a collective sigh of relief. That night, Shermy, Beth, and Marceline all fell asleep in the chairs they had set around the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back! Sorry it took so long. I hope to get a lot more writing done from now on- one way or another, I'm continuing this story.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for jumping aboard this train. Adventure Time has ended, but it lives on. Now, I can't guarantee that this fic will be completed to the full extent that I intend- things in the real world (ew) are pretty danged busy, and I don't always get to finish my projects. But I'd love it if you all stick around to see how it goes.
> 
> Now for the fun part. If you have any ideas for some fun, one-off episodes you'd like to see, leave them in the comments below! I have my own ideas and a basic outline for the ongoing story stuff, but those random, one-off episodes were part of what made the show so great. I'd love to incorporate some of your ideas into my story, assuming enough people read this.
> 
> Comments are welcome. Hang out with the butterflies and bees!


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